The “Center-Sphere”
By Kevin | Related entries in Blogging, IraqDoes such a thing exist?
Supporting the war effort and dismissing the president in a single breath won’t win you many friends around the blogosphere. But perhaps this is the niche that the “Center-sphere†will carve out, if such a thing is to exist. After all, when both sides are screaming at you, you may have done something right (despite Matthew Yglesias’s reservations).
Read the whole thing here.
So what say you folks? I think the Left (and it tends to come from that direction) has a fair argument when they say that war support often gets cloaked as “moderatism,†whereas the critics often get Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS) thrown in their face. Is that fair?
But more to the point, is there a “center†growing in the blogosphere? If so, well what role can it play other than a contrarian one?
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August 22nd, 2007 at 11:34 am
I think there is a center-sphere, but it’s much more hard to nail down than your traditional left/right blogopsheres. Particularly because there are fewer unifying factors involved. We aim to keep people honest and potentially give rise to a third way, but that can mean many different things ultimately.
Another thing, I don’t think war support is “moderatism” and I think BDS is an easy thing to say to people you don’t want to listen to. In the end, we’re talking about a body politic that is incredibly diverse but is being represented by two very specific points of view. Which is one reason why I think the moderate blogosphere will only grow, while the others will start to shrink eventually. Because in the age of information, the best ideas (not ideology) win.
At least that’s my hope.
August 22nd, 2007 at 3:54 pm
I am a little less optimistic than Justin. I keep thinking I am going to write a post about this but I never seem to get around to it. Instead I’ve probably written it a dozen times, scattered in comment threads around the blogosphere that I can’t find anymore.
My take: Yes there is an independent/moderate/libertarian/center, but it is much smaller than those of us who think we inhabit that space would like to believe. It is not growing, but fluctuates between 10%-20% of the electorate.
I think there is about 1/3 hardcore partisan right, and 1/3 hardcore partisan left. There is a 1/3 that says they are independent, but 2/3’s of tha third (still with me?) identifies R or D and no matter what they say, in the privacy of the voting booth, will vote as reliably partisan as the hardcore partisan. So that leaves this 10%-15% or so of true independents who will switch votes.
The real question is whether the center can be politically relevant. In general, the answer is no. In landslide elections, they are swamped. Since they are independent, in close elections they tend to cancel each other out. There is no real organizing principle to get them voting one way except a 3rd party personality, and in those cases they will usually act as spoilers and elect the greater of two evils.
That is why I am enamored of divided government as a voting heuristic. It is a possible (if improbable), way of organizing that sliver of independent votes, in a way that actually can swing elections in the direction the voters intend.
August 22nd, 2007 at 5:19 pm
Given our electoral system, where third parties are reduced to spoilers, and given the reality of the modern Republican party’s extremism, most moderates would be best served trying to stop the republicans…which means voting democrat. I would consider myself a “moderate” if the right wing of the political spectrum weren’t lopsided with nut jobs and idiots. And before you tell me I’m a total partisan, the reality is that the modern republican party eschews science -evolution, global warming, etc…- and while insisting we are in an existential struggle against fundamentalist Islam, decided it was a great idea to destabilize one of the few SECULAR regimes in the ME. They are rediculous to the point where, even though I’m not about to stand behind bernie sanders’ socialism, I’ll vote for him if it means keeping some insane bastard out of congress.
And being in favor of staying in Iraq now, even one accepts it was a VERY BAD idea to have started this war, definitely does not define one as a moderate.