Right now in the United States, moderates feel squeezed out of the political process by both parties. The time has come for level-headed and centristic/moderates to make ourselves known. Neither conservatives, nor liberals truly speak for us, the often silent, but powerful majority. Polarized extremists on each end of the political spectrum state their views forcefully and loudly, however, the moderate majority has primarily gone without a voice – unified or not. Recent American politics have seen this polarization to both parties where few, if any, have had the strength to vote against the orthodox view of their party’s extreme.
One need only look at one party, which has become stigmatized as “The Party of ‘No’” to see how this plays out in national politics from swearing in ceremony in 2009 through the present. The moderate voices of the GOP have been silenced, early on in the new election cycle there seemed to be many self-labeled moderate Republicans running for election, but as the propaganda and mud-slinging continued, those in the middle seemed to be out paced by the extreme right, most notoriously by the party’s last vice-presidential nominee. The fact that John McCain, who used to be considered a “maverick centrist” has turned to his former colleague from the run for the White House to establish himself as right-wing and aligned with the Tea Party. The idea of the Tea Party being the unifying name for a political movement rallying against taxes, health care reform and often whether President Obama was born in the US and launching smear campaigns against those who do not share their same political view-point. The Republican move to silence the moderate voice, however, is not the only movement.
During this same general period of time, the moderate voice of Joe Lieberman, a former VP nominee himself, was threatened with party expulsion for supporting a candidate from another party. There were voiced threats to strip him of his chairmanship of the Homeland Security committee and basically oust him from the party. Democratic leaders recanted due primarily to the influence of Obama. Since 2006, when he won as a third party candidate, he has been listed as an Independent Democrat, even though he is still registered as a Democrat in his home state. This is just another example of a trend to silence moderate points of view.
Political history shows that, unless the USA is in major turmoil from war, attacks or economic downturns, most, if not nearly all, legislation which obtains bipartisan support is strongly influenced by moderate political views. Those presidents who led not from extremes, instead from some variant of moderation, were the ones who made the most lasting legacies and are the ones who were able to rally the nation around long-term causes. It is interesting to note that Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama all governed from the middle.
The idea that a politician is to represent the entire constituency (not just the ones who voted for the candidate) and also vote her or his own conscience should be a call for a moderate stance from almost all politicians – as few if any districts are represented by only one party or political view. While not advocating starting another party – the time has come for moderates to express our varied moderate views in a constructive and productive manner and develop our own political action committee. Liberals and conservatives rally around the extreme ends of political ideology. Moderates, however, come from both parties and understand that is more than straight party-line politics. Understanding the nature of moderates ranges from those leaning left or right and those who put themselves dead center. This should provide us with many legislative ideas which can discuss and eventually advocated for political action.
As visualized, this proposed website will include a general discussion forum, a liberal-leaning forum, a conservative-leaning forum, and several interest area focus groups as the site develops and need arises. It will offer a place to discuss issues and present possible solutions from a variety of moderate perspectives. Abusive, disrespectful, and/or insulting posts of any kind will get flagged and may result in temporary or permanent removal of the poster’s access to the forum.
As time goes on we would like to invite political candidates of any kind to list their platform and what they propose as solutions for the problems facing the people they serve and the role that those in and out of government need to take in the process. The site will assign an individual blog space to any political candidate expressing an interest in doing this.
Humbly presented by two moderates from two different major political parties.
