Sadly, there is a mushy middle that it doesn't voice its views other than in polls and the ballot box. Nor is it interested in educating itself regarding the pressing issues of the day, let alone following the day to day of politics. It's those people that the right wing plays to by sowing FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) and outright lies, as well as playing to their greed by promising to lower their tax burden by eliminating "fraud, waste and abuse," code words for racism.

While the mushy middle agrees intellectually with the left on perhaps the majority of issues, when push comes to shove they vote their perceived (manipulated) fears and greed over their true self-interest and, most importantly, their principles. It's hard to engage these people because most of them aren't political animals. They're too keeping up and entertaining themselves to stay up on affairs, let alone to get involved. They feed on headlines and soundbites, and the talk shows that pass as infotainment. Moreover, the media has abrogated its responsibility to inform, focusing instead on the process (like Edward's haircut) rather than the issues.

The mushy middle is also strongly influenced by cultural perceptions, and they are often "pluralistically ignorant" in the sense of mistaking the loudest voices for the prevailing cultural viewpoint. The right wing Machiavellian spinmeisters have figured this out and are playing it very effectively in the vast suburbs and ex-urbs of the US.

The left has not yet found a way to reach the mushy middle effectively and is depending on reality to catch up with perceptions to correct them. The problem with this is that the right still has enormous power to shape events, and no one should put false flag operations beyond them should they perceive the need. The right is also very good at blaming untoward events on the left and they have access to the megaphone that reaches the mushy middle.

Until this changes and the left begins to reach them with a new vision for America, the US is in deep trouble. A Dem win in the next election is no foregone conclusion and is very much questionable. After all, the right was able to steal the last two presidentials. Their thumping loss in '06 woke them up, and they will be playing very hard ball in '08.

Moreover, the GOP spinmeisters have successfully moved the Overton window far to the right. So far, the response of the left is to predominantly back centrists, and true progressives other than Edwards are not in the first tier. Hillary is front runner. Greenspan called Bill one of the best recent Republican presidents. and Hillary is likely to govern in his mold if elected. The media is sucking all his air out of Kucinich. He is lucky if he gets any air time at all.

While it is easy to balme the mushy middle and the nefarious right, Dems should be looking at this as both a strategy and communications problem. The Dems do not have ain inspiring vision, a simple statement of goals and a clear plan for achieving it by governing from the left. Moreover, they are not successfully communicating with either their own base, the progressive left, or the mushy middle that is ruled by fear and greed when it stirs from its natural political apathy.

Wow, I've never heard the words "opprobrium" and "abrogate" before. I was too undisciplined to go on to college and apparently even the private, exclusive, expensive schools I went to sucked.
Okay Ian, here is the one thing you're missing out on, and it's only because you don't live in America everyday like I do. A lot of people aren't just gravitating to the liberal side or to neocons at all costs. There is a big 3rd group out there - not all people in the mushy middle, but all wildly uninformed. That is why their vote is still either up for grabs, why they don't vote at all, or why they continue to vote Republican - "because my family always has". But in conversation w/ them I can tell you it is disgusting how little they know, whether they have any leaning towards the right or left (like women who assume they'll vote for Hillary based solely on her celebrity status as an acclaimed woman).
Which brings me to an old Native American tale of "Jumping Mouse". It begins with "Once there was a mouse. He was a busy mouse, searching everywhere, touching his whiskers to the grass, and looking. And like all other mice, he couldn't see very far. Nor was he able to see very clearly. But once in a while he would hear an odd sound. He would lift his head, squinting hard to see, his whiskers wiggling in the air, and he would wonder. One day he scurried up to a fellow mouse and asked him, 'Do you hear a roaring in your ears, my brother?'" 'No, no' answered the other mouse, not lifting his busy nose from the ground. 'I hear nothing. I am busy now. Talk to me later.' He asked another mouse the same question and the mouse looked at him strangely. 'Are you foolish in your head? What sound?' he asked as he slipped into a hole in a Cottonwood tree. The little mouse shrugged his whiskers and busied himself again, determined to forget the whole matter."
This is where a lot of people in this country are at. They have the mouse's view, only aware of what's at the tips of their whiskers. To question anything more is to be told to fall back in line. And why not? Their immediate personal lives - as far as they are concerned - seem largely if not completely unaffected by the Bush administration, so how bad can he be? This is one advantage an incumbent party has, the comfort of familiarty when personal leisure is untested.

HDTV is the new opiate of the masses.

I think most people just want to be left alone and not think about all this politics and stuff.

I read a lot of different kinds of blogs, tried occasionally to read those who defined themselves as in the middle politically. But I turned to the progressive bloggers to find accurate information, not opinions.

Anyone can have an opinion. I find the progressive bloggers also have the facts. And I appreciate that.

My own political views are progressive/libertarian. I don't consider the right wingers or the Randians to be libertarians though. Selfishness is not a value of a real libertarian.

The right wing is insane and selfish. Definitely not where I want to be. So, I stick with the progressives.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

Charles Darwin

Ian, that was brilliant. And it broke my heart. And I cannot listen to the right wing "patriots" anymore, I cannot read them. I cannot talk with them about their views. You've perfectly put into words what I have been feeling and, while it leaves me even more hopeless than before, I thank you for it.

I think fault can be found with anyone, if that's your goal. The great Roosevelt tried to control the Supreme Court by increasing the number of justices. He was shot down, but that was a blatant attempt at abusing the system. He tried to limit the most a person could earn to $100,000. That was shot down as well. But when you weigh the whole of his contributions, he was the right man at the right time. He just needed republicans to balance him out some.
As far as torture goes, obviously it's inhumane and in many cases evil. But so is war itself. People act like the US just started in with torture in this IRAQ war. During Vietnam, our soldiers weren't allowed to torture. No problem, they turned the prisoners over to the ROK Marines. They did terrible things to the Viet Cong. Same in WWII. The great generation performed their share of torture. I bet every war we ever were in included torture. I don't have the time to research it to be sure, but I bet they did.
None of what I am saying makes torture the right thing to do. But it a part of war and as long as men war with each other we are going to have it.
Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus. He felt it necessary during time of war to do it. He threatened Horace Greely when he felt Greeley had stepped over the line with his editorial criticisms.
I think Ian whines too much about how bad we are in America. I get tired of it sometimes. I read Ian and the Agonist to stay up to speed on what the left has to say about the issues. The arrogance of the left shows itself clearly when one says "There's nothing to say such people".

If I'm not mistaken, a great consensus middle ruled for a very brief time in American politics. Roosevelt was widely loved, but he was also intensely hated. After WWII, there was sufficient elite fear of the communists' appeal both domestically and to countries emerging from colonialism to create a consensus that it was better and/or safer to let the average person share in social wealth. Rising wages = good thing. Many posts on this blog have analyzed the growing problems that became evident in the late '70s. The collapse of the Soviet Union and what everyone agreed to call "communism" in the '80s removed the elite fear of impoverishing the average persons. Now, flat/declining wages = good thing (labor costs held in check). So the "missing middle" is a reaction to the '45 - '72 apparent consensus, not to the disagreements and frequently even violence of much of American politics.

That said, there are some reasons why low-involvement citizens look for a "middle". We are social animals, and all other things being equal, we like being normal, i.e., in the middle, non-conformist self-images notwithstanding. And if we're in the middle, then there must be arguments to each side, so low-information people can feel they can't be very wrong.

The elites play on the desire for a "middle" to derail change. Ergo, silly watercarriers make silly calls for bipartisanship on issues that don't have a middle.

The Judgment of Solomon wasn't that he needed to find a middle between cutting the baby in half and not cutting the baby in half.

Two classes are emerging, peasants and the profanely wealth. These profanely wealthy have enough money to buy your "opinion" via media thus choosing their selectee to run interference for them.

With our "news"? Everybody is a low-information person.

As far as torture goes, obviously it's inhumane and in many cases evil. But so is war itself. People act like the US just started in with torture in this IRAQ war. During Vietnam, our soldiers weren't allowed to torture. No problem, they turned the prisoners over to the ROK Marines. They did terrible things to the Viet Cong. Same in WWII. The great generation performed their share of torture. I bet every war we ever were in included torture. I don't have the time to research it to be sure, but I bet they did.
None of what I am saying makes torture the right thing to do. But it a part of war and as long as men war with each other we are going to have it.

In previous conflicts, torture (and other bad things) may have taken place but such things have never been condoned by the chain of command or the civilian government, let alone promoted as a policy and defended publicly by specious legal reasoning of a president's legal team, the AG, and DOJ. This is not only a new low for the government, military, and inteligence services, but also for the American people, whose thundering silence as a people is consent in the eyes of the rest of the world.

The right is attempting to force American policy through hard power, eschewing soft power. This is undermining the foundation of American soft power, the foundation of which is the ideas and ideals of America founders. Without the idea and ideal of American liberal democracy, based on respect for human rights, equal opportunity, fair play, and the rule of law, the world descends the jungle of realpolitik, where everything goes and the end justifies the means. This is the morass into which the right is guiding America, based on fear and fear of fear. The authoritarian Big Daddy government promises to take care of the boogey men, if we are only willing to sign over our rights as human beings to them.

with (typically) economic incentives to cooperate, and economic disincentives otherwise.

this is what makes people like me a lil crazy seeming. every fucking day, i'm forced to accept the notion that "why kind of torture is best?" is a valid question. from black youth in the jena 6, to gay victims like matthew sheppard, and abortion bombers (who just happen to be after me and my beatmate, fo shizzle and possibly at the risk of my life, right now) who think the klan and various dominionists should be in charge- this is reality for me, for many like me. oh, and the good news: the cops? on the other side. they hate me too. let me tell you a little story about the taser and the hidden needle between the arresting officer's fingers...

brilliant post ian. don't mean to be all holier than, but i just wanted to inject a little righteous perspective. fuck yeah, you don't have any rights and you're forced to accept absurdity as "government." welcome to my world, bitches.

Just so this ass kissing doesn't get too cozy:

The Center Holds

By DAVID BROOKS
In the beginning of August, liberal bloggers met at the YearlyKos convention while centrist Democrats met at the Democratic Leadership Council’s National Conversation. Almost every Democratic presidential candidate attended YearlyKos, and none visited the D.L.C.

At the time, that seemed a sign that the left was gaining the upper hand in its perpetual struggle with the center over the soul of the Democratic Party. But now it’s clear that was only cosmetic.

Now it’s evident that if you want to understand the future of the Democratic Party you can learn almost nothing from the bloggers, billionaires and activists on the left who make up the “netroots.” You can learn most of what you need to know by paying attention to two different groups — high school educated women in the Midwest, and the old Clinton establishment in Washington.

In the first place, the netroots candidates are losing. In the various polls on the Daily Kos Web site, John Edwards, Barack Obama and even Al Gore crush Hillary Clinton, who limps in with 2 percent to 10 percent of the vote.

Moguls like David Geffen have fled for Obama. But the party as a whole is going the other way. Hillary Clinton has established a commanding lead.

Second, Clinton is drawing her support from the other demographic end of the party. As the journalist Ron Brownstein and others have noted, Democratic primary contests follow a general pattern. There are a few candidates who represent the affluent, educated intelligentsia (Eugene McCarthy, Bill Bradley) and they usually end up getting beaten by the candidate of the less educated, lower middle class.

That’s what’s happening again. Obama and Edwards get most of their support from the educated, affluent liberals. According to Gallup polls, Obama garners 33 percent support from Democratic college graduates, 28 percent from those with some college and only 19 percent with a high school degree or less. Hillary Clinton’s core support, on the other hand, comes from those with less education and less income — more Harry Truman than Howard Dean.

Third, Clinton has established this lead by repudiating the netroots theory of politics. As the journalist Matt Bai makes clear in his superb book, “The Argument,” the netroots emerged in part in rebellion against Clintonian politics. They wanted bold colors and slashing attacks. They didn’t want their politicians catering to what Markos Moulitsas Zúniga of the Daily Kos calls “the mythical middle.”

But Clinton has relied on Mark Penn, the epitome of the sort of consultant the netroots reject, and Penn’s approach has been entirely vindicated by the results so far.

In a series of D.L.C. memos with titles like “The Decisive Center,” Penn has preached that while Republicans can win by appealing only to conservatives, Democrats must appeal to centrists as well as liberals. In his new book, “Microtrends,” he casts a caustic eye on the elites and mega-donors of both parties who are out of touch with average voter concerns.

Fourth, the netroots are losing the policy battles. As Matt Bai’s reporting also suggests, the netroots have not been able to turn their passion and animus into a positive policy agenda. Democratic domestic policy is now being driven by old Clinton hands like Gene Sperling and Bruce Reed.

And while Clinton may not go out of her way to offend the MoveOn types, on her TV rounds on Sunday she made it obvious that she’s not singing their tune.

On “This Week With George Stephanopoulos,” Clinton could have vowed to vacate Iraq. Instead, she delivered hawkish mini-speeches that few Republicans would object to. She listed a series of threats and interests in the region and made it clear that she’d be willing to keep U.S. troops there to handle them.

The fact is, many Democratic politicians privately detest the netroots’ self-righteousness and bullying. They also know their party has a historic opportunity to pick up disaffected Republicans and moderates, so long as they don’t blow it by drifting into cuckoo land. They also know that a Democratic president is going to face challenges from Iran and elsewhere that are going to require hard-line, hawkish responses.

Finally, these Democrats understand their victory formula is not brain surgery. You have to be moderate on social issues, activist but not statist on domestic issues and hawkish on foreign policy. This time they’re not going to self-destructively deviate from that.

Both liberals and Republicans have an interest in exaggerating the netroots’ influence, but in reality that influence is surprisingly marginal, even among candidates for whom you’d think it would be strong.

Several weeks ago, I asked John Edwards what the YearlyKos event was like. He couldn’t remember which event I was talking about, and looked over to an aide for help.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/25/opinion/25brooks.htm?hp

http://mauberly.blogspot.com/

Thanks David Brooks. I think I'll go commit suicide now.

Is it OK to have a mushy middle if it's spelled differently ? ...

"I will not let Britain down"

_{1."George Washington did not cross the Delaware for Capitalism," -Shmuley Boteach.
2.The Dems haven't punished the GOP enough, so you're going to reward the Republicans?}

must be part of the mushy middle: I would not say as a general rule that torture is acceptable, but I could not say unequivocally that I would never torture anyone.

And just with S&M sexuality, there is a fair amount of torture to go around in this world of ours.

So I'll drink a beer with and pretty much talk to anybody.

http://mauberly.blogspot.com/

Ian's point is this - there are two kinds of people - those who don't believe in torture, and those who have spun off the wheel and do. Period. And for those who are okay with it on any level at all, they are at odds with not being as bad as those countries and people we have always cried out against for human rights violations, and thus, are hypocrites.

post sometime. Everyone has to have a line, or they aren't moral human beings, they aren't even animals, they're just scum.

One of my lines is torture.