Some big players at the game of politics misinterpret the nature of today’s general political discontent, and offer only hollow novelty in response.
Take the “No Labels” movement.
A number of big-name politicians, including New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Indiana Senator Evan Bayh, push the idea of a centrist, can-do spirit, a bi-partisan effort that will transcend the nastiness of the current Establishment Insider/Tea Party Outsider split. Their trendy-sounding “No Labels” label communicates their allegedly co-operative, spectrum-transcendent message. Their slogan? “Not Left. Not Right. Forward.”
According to Linda Killian, of Politics Daily, “the message No Labels is espousing is exactly what a majority of Americans, who are fed up with both parties, say they want from their government.”
This seems to fly in the face of what I’ve gleaned of American disgust. And it distorts the actual landscape of power. No Labels “pragmatism” is as mainstream as you can get, as Matt Welch noted in Reason:
Barack Obama and John McCain both ran for president as post-ideological pragmatists. So did, in their own ways, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. It remains an attractive pose, and will always draw cheers from the indefatigable problem-solvers drawn to power like cowbirds to cattle.
America’s growing disaffection with politicians springs from the continual betrayals of common sense by both parties — including centrist can-doers.
“No Labels”? Phooey. Instead: “No Bailouts. No Over-spending. No Ignoring the Voters.”
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
7 replies on “No Labels, No Clue”
You can deny labels all day long, but your actions will cause you to be labeled. Better to have a positive label in mind, and then see if you can live up to it.
I agree with your last statement“America’s growing disaffection with politicians springs from the continual betrayals of common sense by both parties — including centrist can-doers.” The left has tried to eguate themselves with the right as far as numbers when the split has been 40 20 with most polls that I have seen. The only common sense liberals show is when they are dragged kicking and screaming to it. Obummers tax deal comes to mind.
I’ve no doubt that many “open-minded” people will flock to this No Labels group. As the line in a country song goes, “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.”
By their works shall ye know them.
This group of politics as usual politicians is hoping they can placate the angry Americans and that they will go back to sleep and then the political class can go back to bid’ness as usual and catering to the lobbyists and padding their take home pork so they can keeep getting their no-consequences job.
Pretending that labels don’t exist is akin to pretending that elections and votes don’t have consequences.
I wasn’t politically minded 3 years ago. Ignorance was bliss. Expensive bliss, but bliss. Now the toothpaste is out of the tube. Not the way I would prefer. I was happy being a little ignorant of the shenanigans in DC. And they didn’t mess with my life very much. Neither of those are true any more.
You mess with me. I mess with you by making as many people as I humanly possibly can aware of what the DCites are doing and how it has become a mutated cancer of what the Consitution set up to be.
There’s no such thing as COMMON SENSE. Hopefully, the quiet majority is rising and fighting the mouthy extremists and the media that promotes and profits from it.
The left/right (or liberal/conservative) label ignores the libertarian/statist axis. We’ve plenty of statist Democrats and statist Republicans. “Forward” means more state control for many politicians. And this ignores the reality that the tea party (and many others) want less government. So “Forward” or “no labels” means politicians don’t want to tell you what they intend to do.
[…] Common Sense with Paul Jacob – Brought to You by Citizens in Charge Foundation » Archive… […]