The Vital Center - It now comes from the right (How Conservatives became Centrists)
Sean Scallon
November 21, 2007
I do not watch Glen Beck’s show on the CNN Headline News channel because I do not have the time to waste on a stupid and silly individual. However, when I found out Beck would be interviewing Thomas Naylor of the Second Vermont Republic and Dr. J. Michael Hill of the League of the South as they were conducting a national secession conference in Chattanooga, Tennessee, I was curious to see how he would treat these two stalwarts for secession. The segment truly opened my eyes, my ears and my mind.
Beck acted as though he had never contemplated the very idea of secession before, let alone heard of it. He approached Naylor and Hill the same way a Neanderthal might approach a flying saucer if it had landed outside his cave. In fact, before the interview, he stated his love for whole country - even if on some days he wished California or Vermont could be sawed off from the rest of the United States.
What a crock of crap! This man, like most talk show hosts, has built his career off the divisions in this country. He has made a name for himself on those divisions. He has made money on those divisions. The former shock jock took advantage of those divisions to build his career in talk radio. He wouldn’t be on CNN if it wasn’t for those divisions. For him to speak love of broader America is utter hypocrisy since he arguably hates half of it. He certainly showed no love to his fellow Americans who just happen to be Ron Paul supporters when he equated them to terrorists.
But beyond such “unity” drivel there’s something else behind Beck’s rhetoric and that of other such talk show hosts, pundits and columnists, especially of the so-called “right”. They’ve become a part of the new “vital center” in American politics.
There have always been vital centers in U.S. politics. It basically describes the consensus among elites on a few broad issues that transcend ideological and political boundaries. A good example of several vital centers include The Missouri Compromise on slavery or Jacksonian popular democracy (no land or monetary requirements for male whites), the gold standard that Williams Jennings Bryan attacked or lassie faire economics, the New Deal, the Cold War policy of containment, free trade and an interventionist foreign policy.
It was historian Arthur Schlesinger that popularized the term “vital center” and one could say popular recognition of it came in 1948 presidential election. The Democratic Party, the nation’s majority party at 50 percent plus one, tore itself asunder as its left and right wings split from the center represented by Harry Truman. Since Truman’s Republican opponent, Thomas Dewey, was offering a similar, if more dreary, centrist offering, Truman’s cause appeared hopeless. Yet the center held, largely because Truman ran a populist-left campaign that co-opted much of Wallace’s potential rhetoric and left him the candidate of pacifists and Stalinists while it energized the various bases of the Democratic Party in his favor that pulled him to victory.
For a good portion of the 20th Century, the vital center was directed by its liberal elements. When that consensus came under assault by Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, it was the moderate liberal Republican Dwight Eisenhower who used his prestige from World War II to defend the center and destroy McCarthy’s career from behind the scenes. It was the perfect example of the vital center in action. But in the 1960s, the center came under serious assault. The divisions in the country over the Vietnam War and Civil Rights provoked serious challenges to the center by the New Left and a populist right led by Alabama Governor George Wallace. Both sides tried to tear the center like two fellows trying to tear a mattress.
But center held and held only because, for the first time since the 1920s, vital center conservatives were starting to call the shots. The left was torn asunder and the moderate-liberal wing of the Republican Party was slowly dying due to demographic changes and the Democrats new found commitments to Civil Rights and the African-American vote. Stepping into the vacuum was Richard Nixon. While the vital center liberals like Hubert Hunphrey and Ed Muskie fought their civil war with the New Left (which spawned the creation of the neoconservatives), Nixon won in 1968 by assuring the country he could “bring us together.” He kept the Wallaceites in check by co-opting much of their message (plus Wallace’s assassination ended his presidential hopes) and he took advantage of a weakened liberal side by winning by a smashing landslide over leftist George McGovern, who seized control of the Democratic Party from vital center liberals, in1972.
It would have been interesting to see how politics would have turned out if Nixon’s paranoia had not led to Watergate. Yet with scandal along with the Iraninan hostage crisis, stagflation and the energy crisis, the center, for the first time could not hold. Such a serious situation for the U.S. allowed a legitimate conservative “revolutionary” take power in Ronald Reagan.
The revolutionary fervor eventually petered out, as it does in all revolutions. But Reagan’s presidency succeeded in moving the vital center even further right than it had been under Nixon. That’s how welfare reform was eventually carried out. That’s why the Persian Gulf War took place. The rightward direction of the vital center has now pulled so-called conservative talk show hosts to it the way a magnet pulls iron filings. So much so that one can now say the Beck and his ilk have become “centrists”. In fact, Beck has repeated this mantra about the center holding against the so-called anti-American left and anti-government right.
How can such persons who once claimed the revolutionary mantle for themselves as they battled to gain acceptance from the mainstream for their media suddenly find themselves joining what they once supposedly despised? Like sniffing a drug, sniffing power or the illusion of power and or influence has a toxic effect, or should I say “moderating” affect. Plus, these fellows don’t just work for the local station any more, they work for multi-national media companies. If they want good contracts or want to be syndicated, they’re going to toe the company line, no questions asked. Or they’ll wind up like Alex Jones or Charles Goyette or G. Gordon Liddy, former comrades in arms now on the outside looking in. That’s why Ron Paul is now coming under assault from the B and C list talk show hosts and other assorted centrist pundits disguised as “conservatives”. These people are fulfilling their duties as vital centrists by making sure the center holds in preventing people from wandering off in Paul’s direction. They do so in the jargon of the centrist whenever they want to discredit someone: crank, insane, kook, nutty, fringe, strange, nerdy, dangerous and of course, their favorite put down of all, racist/anti-Semitic (take your pick). Of course, if Ron Paul keeps rising in the polls, then the A listeners will have to be brought out and have their guns trained on Paul just as they did to Pat Buchanan back in 1996. Perhaps William F. Buckley Jr. will come out of retirement to write “In Search of Anti-Semitism II”.
Don’t think Paul is just being shot at only from the center-right. The center-left, or better yet the “political left” is worried about Paul too. Bill Clinton’s presidency revived the center-left and like their radio talk-show counterparts, the liberal internet bloggers have put aside any revolution talk for larger political gain and influence. They don’t want their audience to check out Paul or left-libertarian ideas that would threaten the vital center. So the Kevin Drums, Joel Steins and Matt Yglesias of the world have warned liberals not to swoon over the antiwar Texas Congressman who wants to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq immediately.
But Paul is not a candidate that one can simply pigeonhole into a category. He has much broader support across the political spectrum that the rest of the field of candidates. Usually when political figure attacks the center he does so from just one side only. In this case, Paul is truly unique enough to attack the center from all sides, especially when there’s no strong leftist or rightist candidacy that would take votes away from him. In this, Paul's campaign against the center or status quo, as one should say, may have more of a chance of success than others have had. Indeed, given the bogged down nature of the so-called War on Terror, the potential for war with Iran, rising oil prices, a weaken dollar and financial ruin caused by the housing crisis, the time may be ripe for the center to cease holding and collapse.
Sean Scallon is a journalist and freelance write from Arkansaw, Wisconsin
Beck acted as though he had never contemplated the very idea of secession before, let alone heard of it. He approached Naylor and Hill the same way a Neanderthal might approach a flying saucer if it had landed outside his cave. In fact, before the interview, he stated his love for whole country - even if on some days he wished California or Vermont could be sawed off from the rest of the United States.
What a crock of crap! This man, like most talk show hosts, has built his career off the divisions in this country. He has made a name for himself on those divisions. He has made money on those divisions. The former shock jock took advantage of those divisions to build his career in talk radio. He wouldn’t be on CNN if it wasn’t for those divisions. For him to speak love of broader America is utter hypocrisy since he arguably hates half of it. He certainly showed no love to his fellow Americans who just happen to be Ron Paul supporters when he equated them to terrorists.
But beyond such “unity” drivel there’s something else behind Beck’s rhetoric and that of other such talk show hosts, pundits and columnists, especially of the so-called “right”. They’ve become a part of the new “vital center” in American politics.
There have always been vital centers in U.S. politics. It basically describes the consensus among elites on a few broad issues that transcend ideological and political boundaries. A good example of several vital centers include The Missouri Compromise on slavery or Jacksonian popular democracy (no land or monetary requirements for male whites), the gold standard that Williams Jennings Bryan attacked or lassie faire economics, the New Deal, the Cold War policy of containment, free trade and an interventionist foreign policy.
It was historian Arthur Schlesinger that popularized the term “vital center” and one could say popular recognition of it came in 1948 presidential election. The Democratic Party, the nation’s majority party at 50 percent plus one, tore itself asunder as its left and right wings split from the center represented by Harry Truman. Since Truman’s Republican opponent, Thomas Dewey, was offering a similar, if more dreary, centrist offering, Truman’s cause appeared hopeless. Yet the center held, largely because Truman ran a populist-left campaign that co-opted much of Wallace’s potential rhetoric and left him the candidate of pacifists and Stalinists while it energized the various bases of the Democratic Party in his favor that pulled him to victory.
For a good portion of the 20th Century, the vital center was directed by its liberal elements. When that consensus came under assault by Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, it was the moderate liberal Republican Dwight Eisenhower who used his prestige from World War II to defend the center and destroy McCarthy’s career from behind the scenes. It was the perfect example of the vital center in action. But in the 1960s, the center came under serious assault. The divisions in the country over the Vietnam War and Civil Rights provoked serious challenges to the center by the New Left and a populist right led by Alabama Governor George Wallace. Both sides tried to tear the center like two fellows trying to tear a mattress.
But center held and held only because, for the first time since the 1920s, vital center conservatives were starting to call the shots. The left was torn asunder and the moderate-liberal wing of the Republican Party was slowly dying due to demographic changes and the Democrats new found commitments to Civil Rights and the African-American vote. Stepping into the vacuum was Richard Nixon. While the vital center liberals like Hubert Hunphrey and Ed Muskie fought their civil war with the New Left (which spawned the creation of the neoconservatives), Nixon won in 1968 by assuring the country he could “bring us together.” He kept the Wallaceites in check by co-opting much of their message (plus Wallace’s assassination ended his presidential hopes) and he took advantage of a weakened liberal side by winning by a smashing landslide over leftist George McGovern, who seized control of the Democratic Party from vital center liberals, in1972.
It would have been interesting to see how politics would have turned out if Nixon’s paranoia had not led to Watergate. Yet with scandal along with the Iraninan hostage crisis, stagflation and the energy crisis, the center, for the first time could not hold. Such a serious situation for the U.S. allowed a legitimate conservative “revolutionary” take power in Ronald Reagan.
The revolutionary fervor eventually petered out, as it does in all revolutions. But Reagan’s presidency succeeded in moving the vital center even further right than it had been under Nixon. That’s how welfare reform was eventually carried out. That’s why the Persian Gulf War took place. The rightward direction of the vital center has now pulled so-called conservative talk show hosts to it the way a magnet pulls iron filings. So much so that one can now say the Beck and his ilk have become “centrists”. In fact, Beck has repeated this mantra about the center holding against the so-called anti-American left and anti-government right.
How can such persons who once claimed the revolutionary mantle for themselves as they battled to gain acceptance from the mainstream for their media suddenly find themselves joining what they once supposedly despised? Like sniffing a drug, sniffing power or the illusion of power and or influence has a toxic effect, or should I say “moderating” affect. Plus, these fellows don’t just work for the local station any more, they work for multi-national media companies. If they want good contracts or want to be syndicated, they’re going to toe the company line, no questions asked. Or they’ll wind up like Alex Jones or Charles Goyette or G. Gordon Liddy, former comrades in arms now on the outside looking in. That’s why Ron Paul is now coming under assault from the B and C list talk show hosts and other assorted centrist pundits disguised as “conservatives”. These people are fulfilling their duties as vital centrists by making sure the center holds in preventing people from wandering off in Paul’s direction. They do so in the jargon of the centrist whenever they want to discredit someone: crank, insane, kook, nutty, fringe, strange, nerdy, dangerous and of course, their favorite put down of all, racist/anti-Semitic (take your pick). Of course, if Ron Paul keeps rising in the polls, then the A listeners will have to be brought out and have their guns trained on Paul just as they did to Pat Buchanan back in 1996. Perhaps William F. Buckley Jr. will come out of retirement to write “In Search of Anti-Semitism II”.
Don’t think Paul is just being shot at only from the center-right. The center-left, or better yet the “political left” is worried about Paul too. Bill Clinton’s presidency revived the center-left and like their radio talk-show counterparts, the liberal internet bloggers have put aside any revolution talk for larger political gain and influence. They don’t want their audience to check out Paul or left-libertarian ideas that would threaten the vital center. So the Kevin Drums, Joel Steins and Matt Yglesias of the world have warned liberals not to swoon over the antiwar Texas Congressman who wants to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq immediately.
But Paul is not a candidate that one can simply pigeonhole into a category. He has much broader support across the political spectrum that the rest of the field of candidates. Usually when political figure attacks the center he does so from just one side only. In this case, Paul is truly unique enough to attack the center from all sides, especially when there’s no strong leftist or rightist candidacy that would take votes away from him. In this, Paul's campaign against the center or status quo, as one should say, may have more of a chance of success than others have had. Indeed, given the bogged down nature of the so-called War on Terror, the potential for war with Iran, rising oil prices, a weaken dollar and financial ruin caused by the housing crisis, the time may be ripe for the center to cease holding and collapse.
Sean Scallon is a journalist and freelance write from Arkansaw, Wisconsin
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