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

[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?)