Searching For The Center

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I thought it made sense to talk to a self-described centrist about the partisan gridlock that is paralyzing the budget process, with the 2011 budget unresolved since last fall and 2012’s not even on the table.  Meanwhile we limp along from impasse to impasse on a bi-weekly basis to avoid shutting down the government.

But yesterday’s interview generated a ton of mail from unhappy listeners who were annoyed at me for not challenging what they saw as Republican talking points dressed up in bi-partisan language.  On the other hand, I’m sure to many listeners I came across as being a partisan, and indeed my guest scolded me for being so.   Even though I thought I was trying to make a point that went beyond political partisanship to political ownership.

Perhaps I’m old fashioned but one does not invite guests over to berate them in public, when the purpose is to elicit information.  But clearly I should have been more forceful in making the point that since it appears Wall Street buys both parties, the real divide in America is between Main Street and Wall Street, not between Republicans and Democrats.

I was sternly rebuked for expressing my suspicion that partisan gridlock is more about a cynical electoral calculation than an ideological divide.  It seems to me it’s not so much that the Republicans want to sabotage the economy to gain full control of the government, but that from day one they have resisted any effort to help the economy recover from the recession with its resulting collapse of tax revenues. 

Republicans may want to take advantage of the crisis to shrink the hated government, but while they say they want to cut the bloated public sector, their legislative agenda is really about transferring public money into private hands.  Indeed their priority seems to be to dig the deficit hole deeper by going to the mat to continue tax cuts for the wealthiest one percent. 

Which leads back to my main point that it’s the wealthiest one percent who appear to be running the show.  They are not so much engaged in sabotage to tank the economy, as they are impeding the recovery for the many, while reaping all the benefits for the few. 

Again it is not about a rhetorical ritual on Capitol Hill, but an economic fact in an increasing polarized country, where less income trickles down to more and more Americans, while fewer and fewer extract more and more wealth.  After allowing Clinton and Obama to court them for their campaign money, Wall Street has now jilted the party of the people to return to the country club comfort of the party of plutocrats.

This is not to say that the Republican Party does not have a Main Street component.  That constituency was evident when House Republicans resoundingly rejected George W. Bush’s first TARP bailout.  They were true to their free market principals back then, but since the boiling mad Tea Party entered the hallowed halls of Congress, it no longer about dividing but conquering.

As Mitch McConnell made clear after the 2010 Republican resurgence, they are not about compromising with their learned colleagues anymore, their priority is to run the Muslim imposter with a fake birth certificate out of town and rescue the country from un-American socialist freeloaders.

Although we are told the key swing voters who decide elections are in the center, it is difficult to find where the center is and what it means today.  I am sure the founding fathers had compromise and consensus in mind, but we are living in a divided country where the red and the blue sides are heading in opposite directions.

With the New South and “Christian” values voters now controlling the Republican Party, historical delusion and spiritual dogma increasingly dominate their discourse.  Meanwhile blue states like California seem more comfortable embracing the challenges of the future than sticking to the certainties of the past. 

We will just have to see if somewhere over the rainbow coalition there is a better land that we dreamed of for all in the future.  But in the real world of today, the clear winners in America are the color of money.  They are the few, the powerful, the pillagers and the puppeteers.  And they are laughing all the way to their banks.