The center is right of the center

[jere7my]

On Wednesday, John McCain reiterated a meme he spread on the campaign trail:

Look, look, there is no doubt in my mind America's a right-of-center nation and this administration is governing from the left. [link]

I've been trying to wrap my mind around that, mathematically. It sounds to me like he's saying that the average American is to the right of the average American (which could get very awkward when trying to plan seating at dinner parties). The other option is the idea that there are fixed endpoints to the political spectrum, a Left point and a Right point, defining an axis that we can use to fix the mood of the electorate, which is equally ridiculous.

Politically useful, though.

Comments

[marcmagus]

It's possibly he's defining his spectrum based on international opinions, in which case his statement is at least meaningful, if of dubious accuracy. Or the average political leanings in "first world democratic" nations [the only ones which count].

Alternatively, he could be stating, with great accuracy, that the policy which actually gets enacted tends to the right of the median preference due to the oddities of the political process.

[jere7my.livejournal.com]

I don't think John McCain would be caught dead listening to international opinions. I think his actual message is more like, "The Left has a disproportionately loud voice in this country, since they control Hollywood, New York, and Washington. But Real Americans are farther right than you'd think, if you went by the way the national discourse shapes up." Also ridiculous, but it's a politically useful way for a large, powerful minority to frame themselves as victims.

[eclectic-boy.livejournal.com]

I don't think he's arguing that there are fixed endpoints, just current definitions for the terms Right and Left (which he might say were concocted by The Liberal Media or the Academic Elite... or just that they're holdovers from an earlier time in US history), and that if you stick with those existing definitions we're right of Center.

[jere7my.livejournal.com]

Sure. But the idea that there are currently fixed endpoints is itself ridiculous. Who marks the endpoint for the Right: John McCain, John Birch, Ron Paul, Ronald Reagan, or Sarah Palin?

[eclectic-boy.livejournal.com]

I don't know which of the three choices I offered (or None of the Above) McCain would say is the origin of the current notion of What Right Means. But I don't have to think the idea of fixed definitions makes sense to see that they're in practiced used all the time. I feel like I should channel Foucault, and bring in some of his ideas on how we enact definitions of terms and them get bound by them (c.f. "hetero", "criminal", "female"...)

[eclectic-boy.livejournal.com]

By the way, "enact" was totally the wrong verb for me to choose. These things don't have specific origin points. (I also meant "in practice")

[jere7my.livejournal.com]

I think there's an incompatibility between "they're in practiced used all the time" and the fact that no two people can agree on where they are. I think there's a perception that there's a settled position for Right and Left, and that it's politically useful to speak as though there is, but when you start poking at where those endpoints actually lie the whole thing falls apart.

[eclectic-boy.livejournal.com]

We're in complete agreement on that! But how often does that poking get *done* (especially by, say, Fox News or Air America?)

[vardibidian.livejournal.com]

Well, and more than that, if you think of the center as being where the federal government is now (rather than as some hypothetical midpoint between hypothetical endpoints), the country in aggregate can very easily be Right of Center or Left of Center--in the early 80s, for instance, much of the country had rejected the Great Society programs that were still very much central to the federal government's policies.

Of course, the problem with that is that a statement like Sen. McCain's is simply false. Popular policies are far to the left of our current actual policies. But it is a statement with a truth value, just not a good one.

Thanks,
-V.

[antimony.livejournal.com]

Or even if you just think of the center as something the press and popular opinion has defined. I, too, think it's a false statement, but I don't have trouble understanding what it means on a gut level.

[jere7my.livejournal.com]

I made that point in my original post: "The other option is the idea that there are fixed endpoints to the political spectrum, a Left point and a Right point, defining an axis that we can use to fix the mood of the electorate, which is equally ridiculous." Something that is false and ridiculous but "understandable on a gut level" is still false and ridiculous.

[ccommack]

Is it less ridiculous if we take "right of center" to mean "conservative" (and "left of center" to mean "liberal")? Because that's what's actually being said; McCain wants to perpetuate the idea that the majority of America is conservative, while at the same time being inclusive of those who are currently shying away from the conservative label. The narrative being that, the Republicans, having been identified as far-right instead of the center-right they would like to be known as, have lost two consecutive elections because the Democrats fashioned themselves into the only party of the center. In order to come back, the Republicans must be seen as a more acceptable alternative to the center *AND* portray the Democrats as being far-left; they must do both, at the same time, or else it won't work. Hence, the term "right-of-center", associating the Republicans with the word "center", but when contrasting to the Democratic Administration, only using the word "left" and denying the positive association.

Frank Luntz has built an entire career out of this kind of almost-subliminal wordplay, and he's approximately the last live person who just about every Republican listens to.

[jere7my.livejournal.com]

Again, this rests on the assumption that there are fixed posts marked "Conservative" and "Liberal", which McCain can use to define an axis on which to plot the political leanings of Americans. As I stated in the original post, this kind of thing is effective, but it continues to be ridiculous, because those posts move as the mood of the country shifts, and no two people agree on where they are anyway.

I feel like most of the comments here are reiterating the same point, which is a point I made in the original post: it makes political sense to use that phrasing, but it has no basis in reality, and as soon as you start poking at it that becomes apparent. Hence ridiculous.

[ccommack]

But "Conservative" and "Liberal" are *not* relative descriptions! They have concrete definitions as policy programs, and have not moved perceptibly for at least 20 years, if not longer. "[The] assumption that there are fixed posts marked 'Conservative' and 'Liberal'" is entirely valid for this purpose, even though it wouldn't work if we took the actual terms "right of center" and "left [of center]" at face value! Isn't speaking in code fun?

Dismissing this rhetoric as ridiculous is dangerous. Anyone to whom it makes sense, even if they haven't yet thought critically about it, will see your dismissal as foolish or arrogant and will harden their position against you in reaction. The meme can *only* be effectively fought on its own terms, by arguing that liberal policies are more popular than conservative policies, and that this is consistently borne out in polling. You can't win a political argument by trying to prescriptivize the English language out from under your opponent.

[jere7my.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to stop ridiculing John McCain when he's being ridiculous. I don't think a lot of Teabaggers are going to read my LiveJournal, and those who do are welcome to bite my shiny metal teabag.

To put it another way: I'm not trying to win an political argument with conservatives. I'm trying to make fun of conservatives.

[jere7my.livejournal.com]

McCain was using the line on the campaign trail, when Bush was in office, so I'm not sure he was referring to the government.