Middle Ground

Author: Fahim Ahmed

Middle Ground began publication last fall with the objective of providing a moderate and centrist commentary on U.S. domestic politics, economic policies and international affairs. During the course of the past year, however, we have observed the middle ground in politics shift, steadily but definitively, away from the center, with the conservative right increasingly consolidated within its end-zone, and the liberal left polarized further away from the center.
Has the middle ground, then, been forever lost? It is perhaps fitting that this final edition of Middle Ground be dedicated to a retrospective on the demise of the moderate view in the developments of the past year.
One of the most significant events of the year has been the historical results of the midterm Congressional elections. For the first time in several decades, the party of the incumbent in the White House gained seats in both houses of Congress, retaining its majority in the House of Representatives and regaining control of the Senate.
Its strong performance in the polls emboldened the Republican Party and its leader President Bush to pursue its conservative agenda on such issues as the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, judicial appointments and tax-cut plans. At the political (rather than the policy) level, it encouraged the Republican Party to reaffirm its roots in the ideological right - most aptly illustrated by Senator Trent Lott's now-infamous comments. The Democratic Party was also encouraged to shift further left towards its traditional comfort zone - a move characterized by its choice of the liberal Congressman Pelosi as House Minority Leader.
The greatest collateral damage of this polarization in the domestic sphere, perhaps, has been the economy. Bush's plan for economic recovery appears transfixed on one single element: a further cut in taxes.
The President's latest proposal to reduce taxes by $726 billion and eliminate taxes on dividends threatens to convert the largest federal budget surplus in U.S. history from two years ago into the largest federal deficit, without a sufficient likelihood of initiating an economic recovery.
The Democrats, on the other hand, have been quick on the criticism but slow on the counter-policy.
The proposal by Democratic presidential hopeful Congressman Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.) to cancel the $1.1 trillion tax cut and to replace it with a universal health insurance program at $210 billion per year promises to perpetuate the deficit without providing an impetus to strengthen the economy.
The deep schism that has recently developed in the American polity has most palpably manifested itself on the issue of the war on Iraq. While Bush enjoyed the support of 70 percent of Americans in the recent Operation Iraqi Freedom, the overwhelming majority in figures belies the underlying divisions.
Whereas 94 percent of Republicans supported the President in the war, only 50 percent of the Democrats backed him. Further, a majority of African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans had opposed his position on the Iraq issue. Just as significantly, the war on Iraq saw the American mass media gravitate to the right.
The biased, often jingoistic, coverage of the war by Fox News and MSNBC in particular, and major U.S. news sources in general, raises questions about the future of independent press in a democratic society.
The war on Iraq has also led to a polarization in the global context. An important development in Operation Iraqi Freedom was the effective disintegration of NATO - the most successful military alliance in recent world history - and the emergence of strategic and disposable alliances.
Also significant is the emergence of Europe, most notably France, Germany and Russia, as a countervailing force against U.S. hegemony. These developments may well be early signs of a global reorientation that further reemphasizes the increasingly bipolar nature of the modern world.
So what, then, is the future of the middle ground in U.S. politics, economic policies and in international affairs? Has American society shifted ideologically and politically to the right?
We may well have to wait until November 2004 for a definitive answer.