What has happened to Centrism in the U.S?

[Phony Moderate]

Where are the Thomas Deweys, Dwight Eisenhower, Nelson Rockefellers, Gerald Fords, Harry Trumans and Bill Clintons?

[Lief 🗽]

The Democratic Party.

[Roemerista]

The Democratic Party.

Agreed, the ideological purity of the Democratic party has crushed it. [/hackery]

If I had to venture a guess, it would have to do with our news media (not that its lefty or anything stupid like that). Considering that as a buisness they have to sell news, and non-confrontational news doesnt sell. Further politicans make a life out of finding divisions between people to garner support.

[Mr. Morden]

The "postwar consensus" collapsed, and "normal" levels of polarization returned.

In any case, wouldn't you rather the USA be polarized along the rather mundane issues of today, rather than, say, racial issues, which is what it was polarized over for much of its history?

[King]

The internet.  "Facts" now show that all successful endeavors in United States "history" were 100% because of pure conservative/liberal ideology.  There is no mix.  Truth!!!

[Marokai Backbeat]

The Democratic Party.

[Napoleon]

Realignment, Rush Limbaugh, cable news, the DLC, and the permanent campaign happened.
Most of these changes really took effect during the 1990s and got us where we are today.

[Phony Moderate]

And of course, pretty much the opposite has happened here in the UK.

*Waits for Al to post a rant about how the Blair Government was radically left-wing"

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

I can only speak for what has happened within my lifetime: 

1) RoeVWade and Gay Rights.  it used to be the parties weren't too far apart on morality.  but once the Dems firmly hooked their wagon to abortion and homosexuality and allowed the government to define morality, the moral middle disappeared.

2) Social Spending: has reached levels even LBJ never dreamed of.  This makes spending pretty much inflexible.   Prior to all these entitlements, congress used to be able to ramp spending up AND DOWN as necessary, but not anymore.

3) Federal tax base has shrunk - an absolute recipe for disaster as over 50% of wage earners pay no federal tax, and the rich are picking up an ever creasing share of the federal tax burden.

4) break down of family and community:  the increased social spending is dissolving family ties (e.g. kids no longer have to take care of their parents), instead of family responsibility you have "it takes a village (where village = government)"....same thing with the community, people are instead looking for help from the government, and those able to give are not lending a hand and are instead depending on the government to take over their responsibility to their community (which is why social conservatives give more to charity – they understand that it is the people that make a community, not the government).

So, over the last 40 years, the federal government has taken over the roles of church (morality), community and family.  Those who buy into that government role are entrenched on the left, and those who reject that government role are entrenched on the right, with the middle swing voter basically throwing darts at a board.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

There is no such thing as "centrism".

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

it's easy to look back in time and say they were all centrists back then without thinking of the serious disagreements at the time.

[memphis]

It's the right, not the left, who insist that the gov't play the role of morality nanny. From abortion to gay marriage to drug laws, the right insists that the gov't enforce their narrow view of what is and isn't "moral." It takes a very particular kind of control freak to be a "social conservative." To insist you know how somebody's else family should be structured. How somebody else should live their life.
The right has also done an effective job convincing countless millions that the US can be a wealthy and powerful nation if we can just impoverish more of our citizens. If only we could destroy the basic standard of living for union members, teachers, policemen et al the US would be great. It doesn't make any real sense, but millions believe. We're way beyond the historic disdain for the poor and weak that has long characterized this country. We're now going after the middle class in an absurd crusade to impoverish them as well. Millions more are so distracted by the "social issue" sideshow that they inadvertantly support this radical conservative objective.
Fake news (and I'm not talking about the Onion) has been key as well. Today's news is nothing more than two pompous heads screaming at each other. There is no sense of dignity or purpose. Just screaming for screaming's sake.
The right has chosen to leave mainstream society physically as well. They packed up their U-hauls and left the towns where they grew up. They manipulated gov't subsidies for infrastructure like roads and schools and created towns of their own, many miles from established cities, where they could live apart from the rest of society, placing a great strain on government services, while, at the same time, whining incessently about the government and how it's of no use to anybody.
Today, there is no American Left in the historical sense. Nobody is clamoring for the government to take over vital industries, except to save them after the right has driven them into the ground. We have no IWW anymore. No Huey Long or Eugene Debs. In many ways, the Democratic Party is the more conservative party, trying to hold on to the last vestiges of a broad-based Middle Class that was once much more common, until the greedy richers on the right (with help from countless useless idiots) tricked the country into giving them everything they could ever want.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

It's the right, not the left, who insist that the gov't play the role of morality nanny. From abortion to gay marriage to drug laws, the right insists that the gov't enforce their narrow view of what is and isn't "moral." It takes a very particular kind of control freak to be a "social conservative." To insist you know how somebody's else family should be structured. How somebody else should live their life.

yo, it's not the GOP that has moved on these issues, it's the Left. 

---

The right has also done an effective job convincing countless millions that the US can be a wealthy and powerful nation if we can just impoverish more of our citizens. If only we could destroy the basic standard of living for union members, teachers, policemen et al the US would be great. It doesn't make any real sense, but millions believe. We're way beyond the historic disdain for the poor and weak that has long characterized this country. We're now going after the middle class in an absurd crusade to impoverish them as well. Millions more are so distracted by the "social issue" sideshow that they inadvertantly support this radical conservative objective.
Fake news (and I'm not talking about the Onion) has been key as well. Today's news is nothing more than two pompous heads screaming at each other. There is no sense of dignity or purpose. Just screaming for screaming's sake.
The right has chosen to leave mainstream society physically as well. They packed up their U-hauls and left the towns where they grew up. They manipulated gov't subsidies for infrastructure like roads and schools and created towns of their own, many miles from established cities, where they could live apart from the rest of society, placing a great strain on government services, while, at the same time, whining incessently about the government and how it's of no use to anybody.
Today, there is no American Left in the historical sense. Nobody is clamoring for the government to take over vital industries, except to save them after the right has driven them into the ground. We have no IWW anymore. No Huey Long or Eugene Debs. In many ways, the Democratic Party is the more conservative party, trying to hold on to the last vestiges of a broad-based Middle Class that was once much more common, until the greedy richers on the right (with help from countless useless idiots) tricked the country into giving them everything they could ever want.

yo, yoyo, a bigger % of GDP is being spent on entitlements than at any time in this nation's history

[Dgov]

Jimmy Carter.

[Torie]

Centrism is kind of waning at the moment, because our problems are so complex, and the choices so painful, that folks tend to want to believe in the tooth fairy, and want and need to believe, that slashing all of that spending, or taxing the sh*t out of the rich, depending on their political orientation, will just make it all go away like waking up from a bad dream. We tend to be almost like children, and the politicians, most of them, are treating us like children, which is sort of what we deserve come to think of it. And we will pay for it down the line, or you will. I will probably have assumed room temperature when the worst of it hits, and the chickens really come home to roost.

[Wakie77]

What happened is politics became a sport to the voters and a war to the participants.

Voters support political parties instead of individuals.  They follow EVERYTHING their "team" does as if it was gospel truth.  Mitt Romney introduced real healthcare reform in Massachusetts but the left mocks his religion.  Barack Obama gets Bin Laden but the right attacks him for having Common visit the White House.

The "rules" which used to be honored in politics went out the window.  Lee Atwater's "Willie Horton" campaign against Dukakis was downright obscene.  The constant digging for dirt throughout the Clinton Presidency cost millions, did not in any way benefit the nation, and was intensely hypocritical as the guys heading it were cheaters too.

[bullmoose88]

If they truely exist, they're self-gerrymandered into minorities (or at least inactive/apathetic majorities) among the two big parties.

[SmokingCricket]

The Centrism of the 1950s and 1960s is, in my opinion, an aberration in the American political scene. The parties at the time carried people from multiple sides. Usually, the parties have had a distinct separation in overall platforms; although I suppose platforms may have been smaller for certain eras.


As an example, the Republican Party platform of 1856 featured really three items: A stop (not abolition, just a stop) to the spread of slavery to new territories, a protective tariff to help Northern industry, and a homestead act to encourage settlement in the West. That was about it. Such a platform could perhaps encourage a form of Centrism in the other policies - there would be no set opinion and any idea could be feasible - but that is missing the point of the overall debate of the time. If politics are polarized today, then the politics of that era were a hundred times more polarized.


The Democratic Party is closer to the center than the GOP today, but if only because the Democrat base is wider. For all of the talk of the "Blue Dogs", there is usually very little mentioned about "liberal Republicans" unless they are in favor of abortion or gay marriage, and that means that those Republicans are just lone individuals rather than an influential party bloc.

[memphis]

It's the right, not the left, who insist that the gov't play the role of morality nanny. From abortion to gay marriage to drug laws, the right insists that the gov't enforce their narrow view of what is and isn't "moral." It takes a very particular kind of control freak to be a "social conservative." To insist you know how somebody's else family should be structured. How somebody else should live their life.

yo, it's not the GOP that has moved on these issues, it's the Left. 

Should we pretend like it's 1940 forever? For that matter, are you 100% sure everybody was a fundy Christian in 1940?

The right has also done an effective job convincing countless millions that the US can be a wealthy and powerful nation if we can just impoverish more of our citizens. If only we could destroy the basic standard of living for union members, teachers, policemen et al the US would be great. It doesn't make any real sense, but millions believe. We're way beyond the historic disdain for the poor and weak that has long characterized this country. We're now going after the middle class in an absurd crusade to impoverish them as well. Millions more are so distracted by the "social issue" sideshow that they inadvertantly support this radical conservative objective.
Fake news (and I'm not talking about the Onion) has been key as well. Today's news is nothing more than two pompous heads screaming at each other. There is no sense of dignity or purpose. Just screaming for screaming's sake.
The right has chosen to leave mainstream society physically as well. They packed up their U-hauls and left the towns where they grew up. They manipulated gov't subsidies for infrastructure like roads and schools and created towns of their own, many miles from established cities, where they could live apart from the rest of society, placing a great strain on government services, while, at the same time, whining incessently about the government and how it's of no use to anybody.
Today, there is no American Left in the historical sense. Nobody is clamoring for the government to take over vital industries, except to save them after the right has driven them into the ground. We have no IWW anymore. No Huey Long or Eugene Debs. In many ways, the Democratic Party is the more conservative party, trying to hold on to the last vestiges of a broad-based Middle Class that was once much more common, until the greedy richers on the right (with help from countless useless idiots) tricked the country into giving them everything they could ever want.

yo, yoyo, a bigger % of GDP is being spent on entitlements than at any time in this nation's history
[/quote]

This is all about the fact that the 65+ crowd is a much larger % of the population than they used to be. The fact remains that we cannot make the nation stronger by impoverishing them along with teachers, policemen, etc., which is what the GOP since 2010 has been all about.

[RI]

yo, yoyo

[King]

yo, yoyo, a bigger % of GDP is being spent on entitlements than at any time in this nation's history

Just because the money is being spent on something doesn't mean it's been spent on something useful.  Too much of that money is going towards helping friends of Congressman So and So rather than the public.

[opebo]

yo, yoyo, a bigger % of GDP is being spent on entitlements rentier profits than at any time in this nation's history

Little correction for you there, deluded.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

yo, it's not the GOP that has moved on these issues, it's the Left. 

Should we pretend like it's 1940 forever? For that matter, are you 100% sure everybody was a fundy Christian in 1940?

no, not all, but it was the fundy Christian types who sought a country based on religious freedom, and it was the fundy Christian types who fought against slavery and pushed for equality for blacks...whereas the Dem base has historically been on the wrong side of morality.  such is the case today. 

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

yo, yoyo

No comprende

[WillK]

Where are the Thomas Deweys, Dwight Eisenhower, Nelson Rockefellers, Gerald Fords, Harry Trumans and Bill Clintons?

For the past two years, in the White House.