The Promise of the Center from the Right

I recently read an article by Thomas Friedman that hoped a defeat by the Republicans in the upcoming Presidential race would force the party to go back to the middle.

He also remarkably intimated that the Democrats would do the same thing, .

The past four years will not be remembered by historians fondly.  You have to go back to the 1850s to find so much acrimony, hate and vitriol.

What amazes me is how observers like Friedman always try to strike a balance considering the radical agendas being shouted.  The Tea Party Republican Party is supposed balanced off by the  "?" Democratic Party.

Note the "?".  What takes its place relative to the supposed Democratic Party extremism?  Where is the "?" Party in the Democratic Party.  There is none.  Friedman, and many others, postulate that both Parties have their extreme wings.  There is no such thing in the Demoratic Party.  But there sure is in the Republican Party, BOTH  Tea Party and Libertarians...and a few moderates left.

I would postulate that an overwhelming number of non-partisan political scientists, rate President Obama as a moderate Democrat.  I also would postulate that the Democratic Party right now, is not Center/Left (as Friedman suggests) but Center.

The Republican Party is not.

Look at their Platform if you doubt the radical swing to the right.  Abortion is outlawed in ALL cases.  Their economic policy is for radical tax cuts, huge reductions in "entitlement programs"; etc.

Look at the Democratic Platform.  You see the "radical" notion of redoing the tax rates for people making $250,000 a year from 34%  to 39%.  Those are the same rates that existed during President Clinton's term, and are still much below the marginal tax rates in the post WWII era.  How on earth is this a "radical agenda"?

And then there is the Affordable Care Act, that the Republican Tea Party basically grew to power hating.  People forget the summer of 2010, when hapless Congressmen went into their districts to simply discuss the Act.  They walked into a staged, contrived agenda of anger and fury,  not seen since the segregationist south resisted Civil Rights in the 1960s.

Much of the anger was carefully rehearsed for effect, with millions of dollars provided by the health insurance companies, but much was genuine.  The sponsors of the angry demonstrations, quickly lost control of what essentiall was a white backlash to the first President of color this country ever elected.

This anger, that caught the nation by surprise, was actually the right racist wing of the Republican Party, screaming that they could not stand a Black Man being President!  Moreover, all the  old radical right agendas were trotted out:  The Federal Government is regulating us to death; there are conspiracies to take away white people's rights, the Feds are after our guns, the Income Tax is a plot to enslave us; etc. etc.

And that anger is still fueling the candidacy  of Mitt Romney.  Romney decided, early on, that either you fought them or you joined them, so he cloaked himself in his "radical conservative" clothing, took  the Koch brothers' money, and became a lackey for the far right.

Friedman explains that the major reason Romney is competitive now, and may win the election, is his swing to the middle in the first debate.  Americans had not heard this "softer, more central Mitt", who proudly proclaimed that he had "reached across the aisle" in Massachusetts while governor.  And, after all, he had championed the Affordable Care Act there...but still will repeal it?  That promise to repeal is an absolute cave-in to the radical racist right of the Republican Party.

And therein lies the invalidation of Friedman's  argument.

The nation is split almost 50/50 right now between radical conservative and the rest of us.  In real terms, it is about 60/40 moderate to radical conservative, but Citizens United makes up the difference.

The right wing can make up for their minority status by basically buying votes.  And they are doing  that with abandon.

If Romney wins, with his right wing Vice President, he will have no chance of governing from the middle.  If he tries, he will be blocked at every turn by the Tea Party.

And losing will not "reform" the Republican Party, because they have been taken over by scared white voters, who see the technicolor coalition of multi-racial Democrats growing steadily every year, and must adopt what minority white racists have always done; a repressive right wing government that rolls back civil rights, attacks fairness and equity, and eventually resorts to violence to keep its position.

South Africa comes to mind.  Still, after all the feel good movies about the defeat of Aparteid, still South Africa struggles.  Racism dies hard.

That is what the segregationists did in the south.  Pure racists were never the majority, but used fear and violence (and extra-legal discrimination), to control the south for over 100 years after the Civil War.  For over a hundred years, the social illness of racism destroyed the south, held back economic development, stifled humanity.  It is not dead yet...it lives in the Tea Party.

And that, contrary to what Mr. Friedman suggests, is what is in store for the United States no matter who wins Tuesday.

The Republican Party has become radically right wing, even fascist by the classical definition, and are being run by scared whites who are making a "last stand" for white supremacy.

So there is a reason we have seen the anger and angst of the 1960s segregationists in the Tea Party of today; because in a more sophisticated sense, they are doing the same thing that plagued this nation of 200 years.

It all comes down to race.  The one thing that historians, political scientists, and others have always warned could almost end this nation, is still there trying.

A few days after the election, a new motion picture will come out, about President Lincoln.  Its main theme is the struggle to get the emancipation proclamation passed before the war ended.  Lincoln believed that, even if the north won the Civil War, the south would never relent and abandon slavery voluntarily.  The racist bedrock of the radical right was simply too strong.

He succeeded.  We are failing.


So, Mr. Friedman alas, is wrong. What we are seeing I am afraid are the seeds of another Civil War, this time along "ideological lines" which are still painted with race.

Racism kills, and it is killing us now.