Left, Right, Center? Wrong Question.
Despite a campaign that crossed two years and several continents, right now it is impossible to grasp the full implications of the election of an African-American to this nation’s highest office. The uninformed and uneducated naysayers, and the fear-sowing right-wing commentators who stoked the fires of hatred and ignorance were wrong: We did know enough about Barack Obama. Maybe we don’t know what he will do, decide, or choose. But we knew far more about him than we did most other candidates in history. And, I truly believe, he knows us better too. We do know that Obama is an intellectual, and that he will lead and govern intelligently. That he will surround himself with the greatest brain trust since Roosevelt. For now, that is a welcome change.
The punditocracy is swimming in an ocean of its own hysteria, awash with its own failed analysis and prediction, and flailing about now, attempting to make sense of a sea-change in the perception of where the American psyche has landed. Much like a game of “pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey” they are poking the wall, blind-folded. Or, perhaps they imagine themselves as Goldilocks: “Center-Left”? No. Too hot! “Center-Right”? No. Too cold! “Center”? Just right! (Except, it’s not!)
In truth, Americans are far more complex, mired in decades of religious and social branding that has outlived its usefulness, and left us with nameplates that utterly fail and are inconsistent with our current beliefs. Yes, America has changed. Americans have changed. If there’s one thing that America does, it is change. And yet, the Right is tripping over itself today, (and it will be even more tomorrow,) trying desperately to (1) smoke out those it considers to be its inner Benedict Arnolds; (2) stamp out any and all discussion about its failure, and grab this opportunity to immediately move the party as far right as possible; and (3) do what it does best: throw stones at Democrats.
Here we are, one week to the day that America decided not that it wanted a black president, but that it wanted a smart president. After eight years of leadership by the man voted “the guy I’d most like to have a beer with“, America decided this time it would try brains over beer. (We even decided to vote against the husband of a beer-queen!) Every indication, including Obama’s choice of Chief of Staff, his successful first news conference as president-elect, and yesterday’s meeting with outgoing president Bush, says that Obama is on the right track. His team has already put together a plan to undo some of the damage the soon-to-be-former president inflicted on this nation, and his approval ratings are the mirror image of Mr. Bush’s. CNN’s latest poll offers Americans leery of Obama this reassurance:
So, indeed, what does all this say about where we are? Is the a post-partisan period? A post-racial period? Are Americans now officially “Center-Left”? Is, as Pat Buchanan said last week, the Conservative Era dead? Are we, as Bill Kristol seems to still believe, still “Center-Right“? No, to all the above.
The problem America faces is one that manifest destiny began in the 19th century. Back then, we became a big country with not a lot of folks in it. 17.1 million, to be exact. Today, we are a country of 305.6 million, almost eighteen times as many people as we were 170 years ago. And that’s just too many people who are daily flooded with information and mis-information, most of whom are tethered with beliefs about what constitutes “right” and “wrong”, as well as “right” and “left”. And those views and beliefs are, now more than ever, subject to change.
The question is not “Is America a Center-Right or a Center-Left country?”. The question is, as a country, what parts of those platforms do we want to embrace, and what parts do we want to discard? And then, how do we get there? And finally, who do we choose to make certain we do?