A recent column by one of my “go to” pundits, Jennifer Rubin, reminded me once again why political communication is so difficult. Terms like “liberal” and “progressive” have been redefined by ideologues to facilitate their use as labels, rather than as explanatory terms. Perhaps the saddest example is misuse of the word “conservative,” which the media continues to apply to MAGA politicians, despite the fact that they embrace positions and arguments that are far–far–from traditional conservatism.
Rubin has tackled yet another term that is widely misunderstood: centrism. As she writes,
Centrism isn’t a mushy tendency to compromise. It isn’t a brain-dead fondness for style over substance. Above all, it is not to be confused with “moderation” — the futile and frankly foolish attempt to carve out a space halfway between the extremes of MAGA authoritarianism on the right and rabid nihilism from the left.
If climate change is a fact, to take one example, then splitting the difference with climate deniers is nonsensical. And if the MAGA movement assaults truth, then telling half of the truth or telling the truth half the time isn’t centrism. It’s absurdism, and a sure path to meaninglessness and nihilism.
Centrism, rather, is a mind-set. It’s more than humility, tolerance and restraint, although all of those are necessary elements. Above all, it’s an approach to governance, and not a list of specific policy prescriptions. It can be bold, pragmatic and popular.
Rubin defines centrism as a willingness to admit that all wisdom does not reside on one side of the political or ideological spectrum. It “recognizes that capitalism and regulation, individual merit and social justice, and diversity and cohesion not only can coexist but must operate in tandem within a healthy, balanced society. Centrism, in short, stands for the proposition that ideological tensions are best resolved when we incorporate elements from conflicting perspectives.”
The essay proceeds to show how Biden’s immensely successful Presidency has benefitted from a (properly understood) centrist approach to undeniably progressive goals, and how centrism (again, properly understood) has won elections around the globe. As Rubin reminds us, centrism rejects Manichaeism, and respects coequal branches of government. As she also observes, ideologically extreme courts that abandon that measured, centrist approach lose legitimacy. (Someone should tell John Roberts…)
As she concludes:
We can attribute democracy’s woes around the world to failure to spread economic prosperity, demographic change and the decline of civics education, as well as religious fundamentalism, information bubbles and globalism. Some combination of these factors inevitably leads to support for strongmen who vow to fix intractable problems that “messy” democracy cannot solve. But we are looking in the wrong places for our answers.
We can address all those challenges provided the spirit of centrism prevails. Centrism can accommodate diversity, secure democratic norms, and preserve a credible and independent judiciary, all essential and foundational to liberal democracy.
I agree with all of the points Rubin makes, especially her definition of centrism. But that definition prompts another observation. Centrism–understood as Rubin defines it–looks an awful lot like another quality in short supply in our political class: maturity.
Mature individuals are reflective. They exhibit self-awareness. They embrace civility. Maturity includes the ability to consider all sides of a debate, the ability to embrace persuasive elements from different perspectives. If there is any evidence that any segment of the MAGA movement is mature, I’ve missed it.
It isn’t simply the childish and increasingly nasty response to Kamala Harris’ candidacy. Trump’s entire vocabulary (which apparently stopped expanding in third grade) is that of a playground bully. He doesn’t try to communicate–he merely spews insults. (He is guilty of many things, but civility is certainly not one of them.) His MAGA supporters happily emulate his crude and childish behavior. The trolls that occasionally post here underscore that observation–they simply insult, evidently unable to make anything remotely like rational arguments for considered positions.
Rational arguments. Considered positions. Those are markers for Rubin’s “centrism” and for what I define as maturity–and far too many of our contemporary political figures lack both. The GOP is currently the party of Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Green, and it would be hard to find more immature, unreflective (or more embarrassingly ignorant) standard-bearers.
I applaud Rubin’s effort at actual communication, but that effort fails to take into account the fact that today’s MAGA Republicans aren’t just incapable of actual communication, but disinterested in it. They remind me most of monkeys in the zoo throwing feces.
We need to start electing people who display a modicum of self-awareness, and are actually interested in communicating and governing. That apparently excludes MAGA.
Did you know that, if the Christians come out to vote this is the last time they’ll have to? That’s what the Orange Jesus said loud and proud over the weekend. The same guy who doesn’t know anything about Project 2025, knows that he can do the whole project in four years!
I’m not sure what to think about it, but I do know that we can’t let him near the Oval ever again.
VOTE BLUE!
I feel I fall into the Centrist category most. The labels can be confusing when talking to others. I do get immature when responding on social media and in person sometimes. I’m so over the insults, hate, lies and getting nowhere for almost a decade. This made me think & realize I want to do better. Thank you!!
“We can attribute democracy’s woes around the world to failure to spread economic prosperity, demographic change and the decline of civics education, as well as religious fundamentalism, information bubbles and globalism.”
The last word in that quote confuses me. It seems to me that if we wish to survive as a species on this planet, we need to think globally rather than nationally.
Maybe it’s just semantics. I agree that centrism (as defined here) and maturity are essential for government and leadership, but the definitions of moderation and globalism seem to have or be evolving in directions I’ve not anticipated. “Moderation in all things” was one of the Delphic maxims inscribed in stone at the Temple of Apollo in Ancient Greece.
It’s all starting to sound like Orwellian “newspeak” and “doublethink” to me…
“We need to start electing people who display a modicum of self-awareness, and are actually interested in communicating and governing.”
Isn’t this what President Biden meant when he stepped down from the nomination to reelection to the presidency? “I revere the office of the presidency. But I love my country more.” Putting this country’s future, “…the soul of this country” before his personal satisfaction is something Trump and his MAGAs will never comprehend or place before their domination of America and increasing personal profit over the personal and economic health and safety of Americans which defines democracy.
A popular post on Facebook at this time making the rounds, “I like Christianity much more when it wasn’t a political party.” Liberal over conservative is better understood today as creationism over science. The Constitution of the UNITED States of American has always been open to definition; making it difficult to understand at times, thus the bastardization of the 1st and 2nd Amendments as defined by democracy vs. dictatorship. The MAGA, White Nationalist and Freedom Caucus based GOP would have us believe that they are based in Christianity, using the Bible as their guide. The Bible is the ancient history of the middle-eastern nations of the world; some of the goriest stories of lack of humanity can be found in all versions of that book of domination over gender and ethnicity.
The current exuberance for the presumptive nomination of Kamala Harris (and I support Kamala) needs to settle into; “We need to start electing people who display a modicum of self-awareness, and are actually interested in communicating and governing.”
We simply need to join President Biden…and he IS still the president…in loving our country more.
Laurie Gray; I believe it was Oscar Wilde who said, “Moderation in all things; including moderation.”
Laurie Gray: I was stopped/surprised by seeing globalism in that quotation, too. I wonder how she defines it because I too see the advice to think globally while we act on whatever scale is available to us as the right advice to heed. Some economic/business-world uses of the term, though, have led to results not for the common good.
Critical thinking and testing ideas with facts is the basis for moderation and Rubin’s definition of centrism. Churches will not teach that to children. Beliefs are not critical thoughts – or even the process of critical thinking. Parents who follow church dogma fail to teach their children to think critically on a global scale.
To indulge a pet peeve – what nihilism on the left? It’s so tiring that these pundits always need a false equivalence to prove they’re fair and balanced/centrist. Exhausting.
Agree that adding globalism to the list of complaints is very odd. Unhelpful that right wing complaints of “globalists” just translates to Jewish.
JoAnn Green, one of your sentences popped out to me, “Liberal over conservative is better understood today as creationism over science.” I think you meant it to be reversed, but please let me know if I misunderstood.
I am, like so many of us, disgusted with the actions of the Maga movement, but one thing that always comes to mind (and perhaps there is really no way of determining) is just how many of them are there? Is there ven an estimation somewhere? Maybe it isn’t as simple as that; maybe some believe in one or two or a few Maga ideas, but aren’t in all the way. On the surface it appears to be more of a minority being louder than everything else, thus the impression that the whole damn GOP has succumbed to their philosophy, if that’s what you call it. I am convinced that there are more of us liberal/progressive/moderate folks than there are Magas, and that if we get a high vote turnout it should end up in our favor. With Kamala now we have the energy, the young candidate (by far), and a consequential Biden/Harris legacy that just cannot be understated.
One thing is for sure, you cannot know how many in Indiana are Republicans or Democrats looking at voter records. In Indiana, whichever ballot you choose in the Primary election determines your party affiliation for the next year. Many counties have few if any Democrats running in the primary so if you want to have a voice, you choose the Republican slate. I am hopeful that there are very many sane people under the radar in all the states.
Gil; you are correct, self editing twice didn’t catch it, thanks for pointing it out to me and others. I can only think that creationism seems to be at the forefront in politics today as we are inundated with all things Trump. Thanks again; of course it should read “science over creationism”.
I am a Christian. While we discuss terms of reference to fundamental meaning, for instance, better to identify ‘White Nationalists’ than ‘Christian Nationalists’. They are not Christians. People who hijack Christian identity do so for their own false sense of power. There is absolutely nothing in the teachings of Jesus that aligns with amplified voices from self-identified ‘Christian Nationals’.
John Adams is my “moderate”:
“Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest…”
— John Adams, 1776
Corporations, especially extremely large corporations with billions or maybe even trillions in resources, have become more and more monopolistic and self-interested, to the point that they are loyal to no form of governance but will use any form that feeds the greed. That is what I define as globalist.
We also can no longer depend on the Fourth Estate to act as a check of the three branches. Most, if not all, are in the hands of those same corporate globalists and will facilitate whatever narrative garners the most profit and power.
A recent post caught my attention, written by an university humanities professor, lamenting the fact that most of his students are unable to complete a reading assignment of more than 10 pages. The article ascribes that lack of ability to many factors, not the least is the rush provided by their cell phone addiction. Covid and isolation added to the already decline in the ability to concentrate and absorb complex material. Teaching to the test as the result of performance based imperatives on school funding may explain some of it.
My point is that the corporate/oligarchs have profit as their sole motive in political goals. How they get what they want requires a willing workforce with no ability to organize and question. It certainly seems to be working for them globally.
Here is a link to the article in Slate, not a forum I regularly read anymore.
https://slate.com/human-interest/2024/02/literacy-crisis-reading-comprehension-college.html
Vernon: Agreed… SOME churches will “not teach [maturity and wisdom] to children”, but believe it not, some churches and synagogues actually do.
They (we) are out there and they (we) are fighting a frustrating battle vs not only fellow (mis-)believers, but also the press and they public, who don’t recognize that we even exist…
MAGA’s communication skills are crude because they are mostly uneducated. Ad hominem attacks are high-fived across the MAGA campus. I’m not sure why Biden needed to include them in the conversation. He started out that way but realized at some point how ridiculous it was to try.
My spirituality is Taoism, the Yin/Yang energy. I felt so strongly about it that I even had it tattooed on my shoulder. It’s a form of centrism or balance. However, it is not the same as centrism on a political scale. Rubin talks to the East Coast Elites, the core backers of the Democratic Party. Biden and his backers have done an extremely poor job of placing us on a mature path toward globalism. He’s still too much of a Neocon.
The US still insists on a unipolar world, or rules-based order in which we make the rules and call the shots, and everybody else follows. The problem is that mature global citizens want to embrace a multipolar world in which all the world’s governments work together to achieve our future goals on a more equal footing. It’s collaboration versus competition. Competition is driving us into nationalism or protectionism. It’s the wrong path.
The right-wing MAGA nuts perceive globalism as a conspiracy controlled by Soros and the World Economic Forum. They have no clue how things operate, especially within the Atlantic countries of Europe and North America.
With MAGA mindsets, how can a US world leader achieve any “centrist” goals? How can they unite the two corporate-owned parties, especially when the oligarchy is so far apart? The oligarchy is a top-down hierarchy that doesn’t follow the right, center, or left political spectrum.
In closing, one of my complaints about Christians is their strong tendency toward hypocrisy, and boy, has it been on display this past week. Speaker Mike Johnson invited a mass-murdering genocidal maniac to address Congress and awarded him with 58 standing ovations. He’s like a hero!
A few days later, a gay French artistic director included drag queens to depict the Last Supper, and Speaker Mike Johnson blew a gasket because the French mocked Christians. It was an artistic expression that sometimes promotes a social statement. US “Christians” had a meltdown and are protesting the Olympics.
Drag queens are the ultimate sinners and need to be shunned for depicting Da Vinci’s Last Supper while mass-murdering genocidal maniacs are to be applauded. Please explain the thought process to me, as I don’t understand.
Oh, I forgot to mention that last night, I checked Google Search to see what the most searched-for terms were in the world. The Olympics were number one, and the second term was The Last Supper. I’d say the French Artistic Director made a profound social statement! 🙂
Love this post Sheila and I too follow Jennifer Rubin—she is brilliant!
Norris my friend, I think it’s important to use the term Christian Nationalism because these folks are masquerading as “Christian” and indeed there is a nasty patriarchal thread that runs through Christian fundamentalism. The Doctrine of Discovery of the Catholic religion condoned genocide and is still a document of that faith. My question is where are the faith leaders in non Christian Nationalist churches standing up for democracy? Give MaLes my love.
Hey Todd,,
The last supper? I find that interesting because it really wasn’t a last supper, it was making a New covenant, replacing the old covenant of the Passover.
The Passover was of course during the days of Moses, and the Israelites had to paint their door posts with lamb’s blood so that the angel of death would bypass them and wreak havoc on the rest.
The bread and the wine, unleavened bread, and unsweetened wine. Symbolically, the wine was to represent Christ’s blood, and the bread was to represent Christ’s flesh. In other words, taking him in completely. Not literally eating him as the Catholics claim in the Eucharist. It wasn’t literal again, it was symbolic, the Pope still can’t understand it. And I thought he was like a god himself, lol!
Also yin and yang, or light and dark, or male and female. It is one of the tenants of Feng shui which is wind and water. This was also blended with another tenant of Feng shui, Ch,I which means breath, and, the five elements, which includes wood, water, fire, metal, and Earth. Along with astrology, this controlled a lot of activities actually most activities in Asian life. Different types of Tou so to speak came into existence depending on what part of Asia a person lived in. It has evolved of course, just like those who have corrupted Christianity and Judaism. And we can throw Islam in there also. That’s what men do, they make things much more complicated than they need to be so they can control their fellow man or neighbor. Including create fanatics for war. Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism, Santeria, all combinations of different religions melded together to create mystic and unknowable entities. These are where men create gods and not vice versa. It actually is quite interesting.
Todd Smekens and John Sorg, you both got it wrong. From the Daily Mail, “Reverend Benjamin Cremer, based in the US, shared a post on social media which dispelled the allegation that the controversial scene featuring drag queens was mocking Leonardo da Vinci’s classic painting and therefore Christianity”.
And from Today, “Appearing on French news channel BFM-TV Sunday,” [the ceremony’s artistic director, Thomas] Jolly confirmed “The Last Supper” was “not my inspiration.”
“There is Dionysus who arrives on this table. He is there because he is the God of celebration in Greek mythology,” Jolly said. “The idea was to have a pagan celebration connected to the gods of Olympus. You will never find in me a desire to mock and denigrate anyone.”
If you were familiar, Dionysus was a popular figure in are from the Renaissance through into the modern era, and the display presented at the Olympics was reminiscent of much of that art, not surprisingly.
Think of how many other “public goods” are being shortchanged because of the enormous drain of private education called “choice,” as in, water for choice, Arizona? Imagine other such jursdictions who must raise taxes in order to meet almost existential needs in order to survive in a rapidly changing society who either cannot change or must change slowly due to lack of resource – and all against a background of no educational improvement. We are not getting our money’s worth.
Anne,
My comment Todd was just explaining what the last supper meant, the painting itself in Paris looks more like a Sodom and Gomorrah type of thing than anything resembling DaVinci’s painting.
Dante’s inferno implied 9 levels of hell, I think Jolly went right by those nine and straight to a new level, number 10, lol!
Today, all religion is, is philosophy. The Greek and Roman philosophical houses which were extremely numerous, actually gave rise to much of religious dogma, especially and Christianity, after the apostles died off.
I remember visiting South Carolina a few years back with my wife, we used to go down there quite a bit. We went to a particular vineyard not far from the Little River area. And, the lady said, the owner of the vineyard, the reason there are so many churches next to each other, is that the people didn’t agree with what the preacher was preaching, and they would build another church right next door. So, what they believed depended on the preacher, not what scripture said. And that’s exactly the way it is today. Men make God in their image, and not vice versa. Whether you believe it or not, whether you have a weak belief or a strong belief in judeo Christian dogma, it does not even resemble the original incarnation of the written word. It’s been added to and subverted throughout the millennia. As for Jolly’s artistic license,, IMHO, is in Dante’s wheelhouse, lol!
Anne, I didn’t get it wrong for the time I posted this morning. And, the Christians are still having a meltdown over the Queens mocking the Last Supper.
However, most of the photos don’t depict the blue god wrapped in grapes singing in French about becoming dinner. It turns out the Greek God is Bacchus, and the depiction was not the Last Supper but a Bacchanalia, which is an uncontrollably promiscuous, extravagant, and loud party celebrating Bacchus.
The Speaker of the House is still telling Americans to protest the Olympics and so is Elon Musk. LOL
DIrk_Gently – right on, as we used to say!
It is interesting, and part of the problem, that the Media, while happy to toss the term “radical”, never uses the term “reactionary”, the term in political science used to describe the other extreme end of the spectrum.
As for “centrism”, it has been used too long as the equivalent of “moderation”. As the Overton Window has shifted, so has the definition of “center”. I much prefer Sheila’s term of “maturity”. Political maturity is was we desperately need these days (actually, we always need it). I will point out that the “radical” progressive wing of the Democratic party showed maturity during the Biden administration, accepting compromises with the Manchin wing, even knowing that he would renege on his half of the bargain. Their maturity, and Biden’s long experience eventually led to the most progressive climate change bill to date.
It would be enlightening to see stats on what percentage of Magas attended public schools. I think it might be higher than you imagine. Many people who’ve been educated in authoritarian schools i.e. military, religious know firsthand the negatives that are there, and don’t want to go that way.
I hear Governor Shapiro of Pennsylvania probably won’t be Kamala’s Vice-Presidential pick since he’s supported school choice (vouchers) there. Moderation on no child left behind and ensuring that all children receive a state-of-the-art education is vital for this country. When an American child walks into a public/private/parochial school their inherent rights can’t be left at the doorstep. No brain washing, bullying techniques allowed in any school. Money is US currency and carries the power where it goes. Calling money private, tax, public is nonsense because it’s all public issued by our government. When families paid tuition to parochial schools out of pocket, plus their taxes all that money is public. American Children all have inherent rights that need to be protected as they learn facts for their futures. No American can wash their hands of what’s going on in some of those schools to children. Regulation is needed.
I don’t see the Maga crowd as having anything but their ideas, and how they plan to impose them on the rest of us. Their means of breaking, disregarding and tearing down laws is war at every level on Democracy and needs to be stopped. I hope voting still works and we rid the US government of the seditious Maga conspirators this fall.