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

[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.