The End of Moderation

Human civilization flourished in several thousand years of moderate climate.  American civilization flourished with several decades--and arguably, several centuries-- of moderate politics. 

These days the weather is either very wet or very dry, though some places like New Orleans go from one to the other.  And these days politics are extreme, at least in a functional sense, or in the way that caricatures compare to paintings.

I doubt that these are unrelated.

But even in moderate political times, a little change could cause convulsions.  There was a pretty broad consensus in the Eisenhower years--a consensus foreign policy, a consensus on building the highway system, providing housing loans, on funding health and education, and on government regulating business for safety and to protect everyone (the businesses included) from the galloping perils of unrestricted and lawless competition.

But there were bitter political struggles in the Kennedy years over raising the minimum wage, over augmenting Social Security with medical care for the aged, the program that became Medicare.  And especially over segregation, integration, and equal rights for black Americans--even equal voting rights.  That alone was enough to drive some people mad with anger and hatred.

In some ways President Barack Obama has positioned himself politically in an enviable way.  His adherence to bipartisanship and to at least the explanation for what he advocates places him in the left/center to center/right chunk of the political spectrum, which should have wide appeal.  Even his full-throated advocacy for unions on Labor Day was from the premise that unions and good wages created the American middle class.

  This has forced his opponents who prefer ideological caricature to nuanced differences on policy or administration to move entirely to the extreme right.  They've gotten themselves in a small corner, as far from moderation as it's possible to be.  They are daily redefining how extreme they can be and still be taken seriously within legitimate political discourse.

But because of hard economic times--created by the GOPer presidency of Bushcheney (or Cheneybush), enforced by GOPer-supporting corporate and financial interests and a Do-Nothing but Screw Things Up Congress--the extreme Right, the Rabid Right, may take advantage of immoderate emotions.

That's not all that's involved in the current hysteria.  There's the still powerful powder keg of racism.  There's a newly hysterical greed among corporate interests, particularly the ones that see the writing on the wall of their extinction--the fossil fuel interests, but also the most abusive financial interests.  But hopelessness and fear due to an economy that corporations and financial institutions appear to be deliberately strangling are potent and unpredictable forces in the electorate.

The Left is screaming for President Obama to become FDR.  But in the 1930s there was an extreme right (to the point of Fascism) with lots of money and ignorance behind it, but also an extreme left, with several varieties of revolutionary changes that had substantial support.  And there were populisms that took bits from both extremes, and jumped wildly from one to another (Father Coughlin being a prime example.)

President Obama does not have an extreme or even a Hard Left.  Much of the time this helps him.  But there are times when it doesn't.  The Rabid Right can try to make him seem like a socialist because there are no real socialists around.

Still, there's a certain craziness that may or may not last.  I can't help thinking of Cowboy Rick, ostensibly still the governor of Texas.  Much of Texas is currently in extreme drought.  The number of extreme fires about to reach populated areas including big cities have forced Cowboy Rick off the bloviating campaign trails and back home to the range.  Whether they can force him to face reality is doubtful.  But they might suggest that to everybody else.