The Death Of Moderacy

(Originally published on www.ourlaststand.com)

When I was following the coverage of the election and was observing the commentary thereon, I was greatly impressed by how the media fundamentally misinterpreted what happened and what it means.  Most of the New Media were accurate in their assessment of why there was such a strong Republican victory and what can and should happen from this point forward. There was indeed a rejection of the Socialist policies of the past two years and the irresponsible acts of congress since 2007.  From this point on the Republicans in congress need to use their power to control the budget to moderate the president and force him to concede on issues like extending the Bush tax cuts. Thus, I would like to expound on what this Republican victory means in terms of our political landscape.

On November 2^nd, 2010 we witnessed the death of American moderacy. It might even be argued that this began as early as 2006 when the Republicans first lost the House of Representatives thanks to losses by a number of RINOs. In any case, moderates lost big in 2010. The candidates who won did so by virtue of being Conservative or Liberal according to the populations of their states and districts.

In the Republican party, most of the moderates were cleaned out in the primaries thanks to the strong backing of Conservatives by the TEA Parties.  The moderates who did win, such as John McCain, ran as Conservatives. There were also a number of Democrats who campaigned along more Conservative lines, most notably Joe Manchin who filled the West Virginia senate seat. The greatest losses in the election fell to the Blue Dog Democrats.

Some might argue that this was because they were not truly moderate but that is to say they were not Conservative in the things they claimed to be Conservative and the people valued Conservatism more greatly than Liberalism and that the people were Conservative in their hearts and not truly moderate. And for those who still have doubts, even Glenn Nye, a Democrat who voted against Obamacare, was defeated in favor of a more Conservative candidate. We may conclude with a certain safety that not being completely liberal was insufficient to win reelection.

On November 2^nd, 2010, Moderacy died, Liberalism did not. We must not confuse the two. In 2008, Liberalism won big. It won big, and it is foolish to suppose that an ideology that made such great gains so recently is losing ground because of the falling star power of Barack Obama. Those who do forget that such a decline in popularity is normal, and they also overestimate the impact of Obama’s personality on the 2008 campaign. A more important factor was the Get Out the Vote machine, which played only a small role in 2010.* The entire democratic machine was not at work and if it were, the results would have been different.

What we are left with now is a government which reflects the increasing polarization in the electorate. This creates gridlock, which in a sense is good, but we are at a time where our nation cannot afford to sit idly for the next two years without resolving the problems that face us. Depending on what happens, we may see increasing tensions between not only the political parties and the Old and New media, but among the people themselves. Such strife does not bode well for anyone.

* Harry Reid’s victory was due to this, and the loss of Sharon Angle has been misinterpreted to mean a serious loss for the Tea Party. Rather, it was a failure to properly organize in the homestretch. The early voting allowed the Get Out the Vote Machine more time to work, and thus assured a victory for the Democrats.

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