The incoherent moderates
by digby
I wrote a piece for Salon today that features a report about how political scientists have been misidentifying incoherent voters as moderates:
If there’s one article of faith in the political establishment it’s that being a political “moderate” is the only appropriate philosophy for people of good sense and mature disposition. No one possessed of even a modicum of rationality and logic could possibly hold a set of values or political positions that fall entirely on one side of the political divide or the other because that would mark him as a fanatic of some sort. And that would be very bad indeed. It might even be considered (shudder) partisan.
And if one is wise enough to be such a moderate, one naturally believes that negotiation and bipartisan agreement are achievable by people of good faith by simply sitting down and hammering out a reasonable compromise. After all, moderates have the kind of even temperament that naturally seeks comity and common ground. The problems in our politics are due entirely to the hot-headed partisans at both ends of the political spectrum who refuse to behave like adults.
Imagine how surprised the establishment wags must have been to see this Vox story by Ezra Klein reporting that political scientists have determined the vaunted moderate voter is actually an incoherent extremist who cannot possibly be appeased because her views are irrational. Seriously.
This is actually a huge problem that needs to be rectified by pollsters. First the idea of a moderate being a person of sober temperament and believes that governance works best by compromise and horse trading is correct. That would indeed be a real one. I know some of them and consider them good friends. I don't happen to think it's realistic to think that most people would be moderates or that the political system is better run by them. The system requires people of all political stripes, including the party hacks and the the activists and the fanatics. It's democracy. And I continue to resent the idea that anyone who isn't a moderate is somehow immature or unserious. It isn't true.
But this study reveals that the country has far, far fewer of these "shades of gray" folks (not that kind ... necessarily) that we have been led to believe because the pollsters are coding them as moderate when what they are is incoherent. An that is very interesting. What in the hell are the "Fix the Debt" people going to do?
Read the whole thing for a deeper exploration and then click the links to see the original report. It's interesting. Ezra had an interesting response to the news:
"When we say moderate what we really mean is what corporations want," Broockman says. "Within both parties there is this tension between what the politicians who get more corporate money and tend to be part of the establishment want — that's what we tend to call moderate — versus what the Tea Party and more liberal members want."
That's the problem with using a term that doesn't describe either an identifiable group of voters or a clearly defined ideology to describe policies. "Moderate" is simultaneously one of the most powerful and least meaningful descriptions in politics — and it's become little more than a tool the establishment uses to set limits on the range of acceptable debate. It's time to get rid of it.
Hiyo!
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