The political center is dead in America. And if it isn’t dead, it’s at least on life support.
Far-right House Republicans just prevailed over the party establishment in what most analysts consider a fruitless, politically suicidal move in which the GOP threatens to shut down the government to force Democrats to defund ObamaCare. But the seemingly outlandish idea that Republicans would shutter federal agencies — or worse, let the country default on its debt — is now par for the course. Republicans engage in this sort of political hostage-taking all the time.
But conservatives are not alone in veering toward the fringes and refusing to compromise. In the Democratic Party, the resurgent liberal wing reasserted itself recently when a coalition of women’s groups, progressive populists, and affluent liberal donors helped sandbag the nomination of Larry Summers to head of the Federal Reserve. There would be no compromise.
Still, the biggest evidence of the center’s seeming collapse is in the Republican Party. Arizona Sen. John McCain, seemingly talking to a conservative choir comprised of Clint Eastwood’s empty chairs, warned of the far-right’s quixotic kill-ObamaCare quest: “I can tell you that in the U.S. Senate, we will not repeal or defund ObamaCare. We will not. And to think we can is not rational.”
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.