Chris
10-17-2013, 09:03 PM
Some relief from petulant partisan politics....
A “New” American Center? Hardly (http://thefederalist.com/2013/10/15/new-american-center-hardly/)
...As if we needed any more proof about the uselessness of polls, Obama pollster Benenson Strategy Group and Romney pollster Neil Newhouse of Public Opinion Strategies dug deep and found out that a majority of us have congealed into centrists — just millions of rational and logical realists looking for solutions and otherwise minding our own business. ...
Or, as NBC News puts it:
Culturally, the center could be the butt of any joke in America, with lives that encompass Duck Dynasty and NPR, baby arugula and all-you-can eat Fridays. The center includes suburban mothers, rural working class men, rich city-dwelling business-people and relatively disaffected young people.
Welcome to America, people! And though this poll tells us absolutely nothing new about our own views, it tells us plenty about conventional thinking within Washington and the media.
It’s bothersome enough that we operate under the implicit notion that disagreement is unhealthy and destructive for the nation. But there are other problems with the “13 Things That Define the New American Center.” (http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/new-american-center-1113) Let’s start with that fact that the “New” American Center has always been the American center. Yes, there has been some generational movement on social issues like gay marriage and marijuana legalization, but Washington’s policies have been a hodgepodge of half measures aimed at appeasing centrist values for a long time. If not, we’d have privatized Social Security and a single-payer health insurance system by now.
And though the “our nation isn’t as divided as we think” story is apparently a counter-intuitive novelty for those who consistently portray half the country as off-their-rocker musket-toting troglodytes, the reality is that most people only care about politics occasionally, and even then in the abstract. That’s great news. No doubt, you go through your entire day interacting with a diverse assortment of Americans — of many genders, races and ethnicities — without ever demanding to know what they think about capital gains tax rates or the debt ceiling.
Now, if we continue to make a national political issue out of everything imaginable — health care to education to how little we exercise — that may change. But we’re not there just yet.
In fact, if we’re to believe the results of Esquire/NBC News poll, we would not only have to concede that the nation isn’t as right-wing as the Tea Party, but that it is also far less liberal than the self-styled standard bearers of the rational center, the modern-day Democratic Party. ...
A “New” American Center? Hardly (http://thefederalist.com/2013/10/15/new-american-center-hardly/)
...As if we needed any more proof about the uselessness of polls, Obama pollster Benenson Strategy Group and Romney pollster Neil Newhouse of Public Opinion Strategies dug deep and found out that a majority of us have congealed into centrists — just millions of rational and logical realists looking for solutions and otherwise minding our own business. ...
Or, as NBC News puts it:
Culturally, the center could be the butt of any joke in America, with lives that encompass Duck Dynasty and NPR, baby arugula and all-you-can eat Fridays. The center includes suburban mothers, rural working class men, rich city-dwelling business-people and relatively disaffected young people.
Welcome to America, people! And though this poll tells us absolutely nothing new about our own views, it tells us plenty about conventional thinking within Washington and the media.
It’s bothersome enough that we operate under the implicit notion that disagreement is unhealthy and destructive for the nation. But there are other problems with the “13 Things That Define the New American Center.” (http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/new-american-center-1113) Let’s start with that fact that the “New” American Center has always been the American center. Yes, there has been some generational movement on social issues like gay marriage and marijuana legalization, but Washington’s policies have been a hodgepodge of half measures aimed at appeasing centrist values for a long time. If not, we’d have privatized Social Security and a single-payer health insurance system by now.
And though the “our nation isn’t as divided as we think” story is apparently a counter-intuitive novelty for those who consistently portray half the country as off-their-rocker musket-toting troglodytes, the reality is that most people only care about politics occasionally, and even then in the abstract. That’s great news. No doubt, you go through your entire day interacting with a diverse assortment of Americans — of many genders, races and ethnicities — without ever demanding to know what they think about capital gains tax rates or the debt ceiling.
Now, if we continue to make a national political issue out of everything imaginable — health care to education to how little we exercise — that may change. But we’re not there just yet.
In fact, if we’re to believe the results of Esquire/NBC News poll, we would not only have to concede that the nation isn’t as right-wing as the Tea Party, but that it is also far less liberal than the self-styled standard bearers of the rational center, the modern-day Democratic Party. ...