Liberalism unbound: Shifting the center of gravity in American politics

Given my past association with Centerfield and my present association with The Moderate Voice, given the fact that many of my friends (bloggers and otherwise) define themselves somewhere between liberal and conservative, given my own definitely liberal political philosophy, and given my own firm place in the liberal blogosphere, I have often thought about the meanings of centrism and moderation.

They aren't the same thing. To me, moderation is a tone, a temperament, a virtue. Moderation eschews absolutism. It promotes independent thought and calm, reasoned discourse. It rejects knee-jerk partisanship and talking points masquerading as truth. Centrism is, well, an "ism". It seeks to be an ideology of sorts somewhere between what is generally considered to be left and right. But what does that even mean? What is left? What is right? And what, for that matter, is the center? Doesn't the center shift over time, back and forth like a pendulum?

Though the center of gravity in American politics does shift over time, I have long believed (and argued) that America is fundamentally a liberal society. Whatever the challenges to liberalism, whatever the ebb and flow of partisan politics, whatever the public perception of liberalism and what it means to be liberal, America is a country deeply rooted in the political thought of John Locke, the liberal political philosopher par excellence. To be sure, there are non-liberal and even anti-liberal elements alive and well in America. There always have been, and that isn't likely to change anytime soon. But it seems to me that the basic elements of liberalism -- individual rights, representative democracy, the universal truths elaborated in the Declaration of Independence -- cross partisan lines and dominate American life. President Bush's expansion of executive authority certainly threatens this commitment to liberty as enshrined in the Constitution, and that should worry us and rouse us in opposition, but even this threat hasn't undone liberalism.

Regardless, it's true that the center, and hence centrism, has been anything but fixed. Barry Goldwater's crushing defeat in 1964 marked perhaps the nadir of American conservatism, and it seemed at the time that liberalism was without a serious challenger as America's dominant public philosophy. The rise of the conservative movement in the 1970s began a rightward shift that overcame this dominance, propelling America through the Reagan presidency, the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994, and continued Republican success at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. Even Bill Clinton couldn't do much to reverse this trend. He was merely the right Democrat for a largely Republican era.

But things have changed. Perhaps the inevitable gravitational force of change is pulling America back to the left, the cycle of political history. But there must be other factors. The conservative movement is virtually bankrupt intellectually. Whatever was left of it, specifically the neoconservative segment of it, has been largely discredited by the debacle in Iraq. There may be no liberal movement to rival the conservative one, at least not in a concerted way, but liberalism has risen once again. It is now able to balance conservatism in a way that seemed impossible for a generation. And the Republican Party, the electoral bottleneck of the conservative movement, has fallen into decay and corruption, a victim of its own success, not to mention of its own internal contradictions and disreputable ideas. Finally, in that regard, Americans are catching on. Conservatives have had their chance. This is their America. Is it the America Americans really want?

As well, conservatives have successfully defined the parameters of American politics. This has been an intentional strategy that has been best documented in David Brock's The Republican Noise Machine, a penetrating examination of just how the conservative movement, both on its own and through the Republican Party, changed the course of American politics and the direction of American life. Within these parameters, "liberal" became a bad word. Conservatives demanded equal time, even for their most disreputable ideas, and the far right was gradually brought into the public square even as the left, anything and everything smacking of progressivism, was vilified as extreme and un-American. The result was the almost imperceptible shift of gravity to the right. This makes sense. If you cut off the left and push the right-wing extreme even further to the right, the scales will tip and the center of gravity will move right to establish balance once more.

But, as I mentioned, things are changing. And they're changing not least because liberals are fighting back. Democrats, many of them, are still unsure of themselves and unwilling to stand up for what they believe in, but liberals, the courageous ones in the blogosphere, the punditry, and the political arena, have had enough. It isn't just the cycle of political history, the inevitable swing of the pendulum. Liberals are now pulling the center of gravity back to a more appropriate, a more honest and real, place much closer to what we generally consider to be liberalism.

Who are these liberals? There are many, including Al Gore and John Edwards. But perhaps the best recent example is Russ Feingold, whom we praised in this space for advocating the censure of the president (see here, here, and here). In terms of a different issue, consider this example from The Carpetbagger Report: "The right wants to write bigotry into constitutional stone. The left wants gay people to be able to get married. All of a sudden, Democratic proposals for civil unions is a reasonable middle ground, whereas a few years ago, civil unions were deemed radical by conservatives. The goalposts have been moved away from discrimination... When the right denounces Feingold for his position, Dems can simply offer their 'reasonable' alternative."

This is exactly how to do it. Liberals and Democrats, stand firm. Stand up for what you believe in. Do not give in. There may be room for compromise, for "centrist" policy, but do not abandon liberalism. Do not allow the other side to define the parameters of American politics and thereby the center of gravity thereof. Do not succumb to absolutism, do not turn immoderate, but also do not sacrifice your principles, our principles, for the sake of short-term political gain.

Remember that America is fundamentally a liberal society. If presented with conviction and compassion, a liberal vision for America will resonate once again with Americans. Don't expect 1964 all over again, but there's no reason why liberals can't balance out conservative efforts to define the parameters of American politics. If they succeed, if we succeed, America may soon look and act more like itself again.