{"id":193125,"date":"2009-01-17T23:32:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-18T04:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/01\/17\/on-centrism\/"},"modified":"2009-01-17T23:32:00","modified_gmt":"2009-01-18T04:32:00","slug":"on-centrism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/01\/17\/on-centrism\/","title":{"rendered":"On Centrism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Words I never sought that I would say, but this is a great editorial in the Wall Street Journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Thomas Frank calls centrism a “chump’s game”, and notes that the “triangulation” of Bill Clinton and his ilk did nothing but allow the radical right wing to move the “center” further right.<\/p>\n

Mr. Frank is right, and here is my favorite bit:<\/p>\n

And centrism’s achievements? Well, there’s Nafta, which proved Democrats could stand up to labor. There’s the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. There’s the Iraq war resolution, approved by numerous Democrats in brave defiance of their party’s left. Triumphs all.<\/p>\n

Histories of conservatism’s rise, on the other hand, often emphasize that movement’s adherence to principle regardless of changing public attitudes. Conservatives pressed laissez-faire through good times and bad, soldiering on even in years when suggesting that America was a “center-right nation” would have made one an instant laughingstock.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Words I never sought that I would say, but this is a great editorial in the Wall Street Journal. Thomas Frank calls centrism a “chump’s game”, and notes that the “triangulation” of Bill Clinton and his ilk did nothing but allow the radical right wing to move the “center” further right. Mr. Frank is right, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1002,1003,978,1173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-193125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-good-writing","category-philosophy","category-politics","category-white-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193125"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193125\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}