Lucia

de Vernai

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February 11, 2008

What’s a Patriotic Moderate to Do?

Being a moderate gets you no respect. If you’re a middle-of-the-road Democrat, you may as well be a Republican to more liberal party members. If you’re a progressive Republican – and not pining for a Ron Paul ReLOVEution – you are probably used to getting sideways glances at church.

Being a centrist is actually more enlightened than die-hards would have us. It seeks to strike balance, acknowledging the political needs of all those affected. Liberals, in their fondness for diversity, are quick to cut a corner or two to leave no minority behind. That’s unless that minority is the 47 percent of Americans who voted Republican in an election and lost. “Ha!” they think. “Ban NASCAR, rehabilitate non-recyclers and universalize that health care, it’s payback time!”

While each of those measures would make our country a better place, they would be counterproductive in the long run. A truly liberal president in office is less of a mandate and more of a warning – before any of those ambitious goals get implemented, the pendulum will swing back and Republicans (and NASCAR) will return with a vengeance.

The president of the United States is not meant to be a party member with a leadership position. The president is meant to be a leader with a party membership. This means that he or she has the same obligation to the voters that put her in office as to those who wish her dead. Focus on party agenda and forget about representing the other half of America – and get ready to wave goodbye to the Congress in a matter of months.

The inclusiveness argument may not go over that well after Sunday School, so to justify your moderate views to other conservatives, remind them what America is: Home of modern democracy, land of the free, something out of a Toby Keith song. Explain how it is patriotic to support plurality, how this country was founded on competing claims and spurring ideals. How what separates us from dictatorships like Iraq (a little overplayed, but a reliable example) is our ability to coexist with our political adversaries without oppressing them or depriving them of proportional influence. If they try to argue, look outraged and call them unpatriotic. Try not to start a fight in the church parking lot. It’s bad publicity.

Perhaps the best defense against accusations of feeble ideals and lack of conviction is bipartisan education. Party hard-liners love to press issues and usually enjoy interrogating moderates about their knowledge of politics, perhaps hoping that if pressured enough, you will crack and with tears in your eyes and sweat running down your face you admit that you just didn’t know about all the atrocities Hillary committed.

Learning which of the candidate “weaknesses” are in fact strengths to another voter is the beginning of the kind of deliberation all voters should engage in. Instead of the selfish “What’s in it for me?” hidden under the worn-out slogans about a better future for America, let’s ask: “What’s in it for us?”

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