One of the biggest annoyances about being a political moderate is constantly facing down the charge that you’re really a partisan in sheep’s clothing or, worse, a secret squirrel for the other side (whichever side is the opposite of the critic is the “other” side).  The main reason this seems to happen so often is the angry hyper-polarization that has been fed by both parties in recent years and has grown to be the dominant, even mandatory tone of contemporary American politics.  But another reason is that the term “independent” actually has been used as a catch-all for some pretty extremist philosophies.  “Moderates”, “centrists”, and genuine “independents” have to constantly contend against not only the wrongful perception that they are just playing a deceptive partisan game, but also some actual colonization by actual extremists who want to claim to be moderate, centrist independents as a way of gaining credibility.

One example is the recent article by a Utah “independent” advertising an independent voters’ group.  One doesn’t have to get very far in to start seeing clear signs of some ideological extremism:

I learned that the Pentagon disconnect was more likely a criminal deception by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others. I learned that General Officers were resigning and speaking out but that the corporate media was not covering this actual news.

Rants about politicians of one party being “criminal” combined with a substantive lack of criticism towards the other party is a pretty clear sign that we’re not looking at a centrist or moderate kind of “independence”.  Moreover, allegations of a “corporate” conspiracy covering up the righteousness of a progressive cause is longstanding code indicating membership on the far left of the ideological spectrum.  “Independent” in these terms does not live up to its centrist promise, but seems instead an indicator that the writer is “independent” only because the left-leaning party doesn’t lean far enough.

The same trick is now being played by many “Tea Party” movement figures who claim to be “independent” of the Republican Party.  They seize on the word “independent” as a way of gaining the credibility of principled moderates, but once you look even one or two sentences beyond that keyword, you find hard-right rhetoric against “criminal” or “socialist” Democrats and longstanding conspiracy code words about the Federal Reserve or whatever.  It is the same method of co-opting “independent” and same basic problem.  They aren’t not Republicans because they are moderates or centrists.  They are not Republicans because the Republicans aren’t extreme enough, at least on certain issues.

“Independent” is too often a trick to give extremism the illusion of centrism.  And the reason it is open to such easy rhetorical theft is because independents lack a genuine political movement.  The problem is probably intrinsic.  Real independents, moderates, and centrists resist organization because they can’t tolerate the requirement that they adhere to talking points written by others.  Real independents are also resistant towards the conspiratorial myths that underlie purist ideological projects.  That makes real independents unpredictable — the particulars of each situation can drive the independents to differing conclusions.  That unpredictability makes real independents, moderates, and centrists unwelcome in the meme-driven circles of politics, where loyalty to the “party line” is a firmly enforced prerequisite.

But it also makes real independents a whole lot more interesting to read and argue with.  Now if only we could get these damn poseurs off the lawn.

The author welcomes serious or entertaining comments by email.  Plodding partisan memes will, however, be printed out and used as paper airplanes to entertain the cats.