Radio pundit Rush Limbaugh recently (September 26, 2011) criticized the idea that centrists need their own Rush Limbaugh:
“How can that happen? … What is a centrist? I mean I know by definition it’s somebody that’s not a liberal and not a conservative, but why don’t they want to be either one? It’s because they don’t want to have a point of view. They don’t want to have an opinion. That’s precisely what moderates are. Now, they try to tell you that, ‘No, no, no, no, we go issue by issue, Mr. Limbaugh, we’re not guided by party politics or partisanship. We simply go issue by issue, whatever is the most sensible to us.’ Okay, what’s the core then? What is the centrist moderate core?”
Discussions about moderates, centrists, independents are usually hampered by a lack of clear definitions, and Limbaugh’s remarks are no exception. Terms like “independent”, “moderate”, and “centrist” are used in ways that could mean a number of different things. Let me stipulate narrower definitions for them than Limbaugh uses so we can clear up the terrain:
Let’s use “independents” to refer to people who, when it comes to voting, do not register as Democrats or Republicans, and who do not consistently vote for one of these parties. Rather, they may vote for one and then the other, or perhaps vote for a third party.
Let’s use “moderates” and “centrists” to refer to people who believe that — when it comes to the correct position on a given issue, the “extremes” are flawed — so you should adopt a position “in the middle, between” the two.
Let’s use “remainders” to refer to people who don’t agree with conservatives and Republicans enough to be conservatives or Republicans, but who also don’t agree with Democrats, liberals and progressives enough to be Democrats, liberals or progressives.
Limbaugh’s criticism might aptly apply to moderates and centrists, as I’ve stipulated the terms. But it doesn’t apply to remainders. They aren’t people who are trying to be in the middle on any issue. They’re people who, for instance, agree with conservatives on too many issues to be liberals or progressives, but who agree with liberals and progressives on too many issues to be conservatives. Libertarians, for instance, aren’t going to side with liberals and progressives because they intrude too much on economic matters, and they aren’t going to side with conservatives because they intrude too much on social matters. Voila! Libertarians are a group that isn’t liberal, isn’t conservative, isn’t moderate or centrist, and has a pretty clear core. (And, in practice, they’ll probably vote and register as independents.)
Or, suppose someone opposes all abortion but supports a single-payer, universal health care system. Their abortion stance prohibits them from being a Democrat or liberal, and their health care stance prohibits them from being a conservative or Republican (or libertarian, for that matter). Yet they aren’t moderates or centrists, either, because neither of those positions is “in the middle”. And, if this person is committed to these positions out of a “core” belief in the value of human life or something like that, then we have yet another remainder.
And people who do have beliefs “in the middle” can also be remainders. Someone who believes that we should both cut Medicare and raise taxes is only a centrist or a moderate if they hold that belief because it is in the middle. If, instead, they hold that belief because they think it’s correct, and they’ll continue to hold it even if public opinion changes and it winds up being an extreme belief on the fringes, then they’re not moderates or centrists.
Limbaugh speaks as if there’s at best two coherent political cores out there — conservative and liberal/progressive. But that’s false. At the very least, there’s libertarianism, and probably several other distinct ideological “cores”. Limbaugh also speaks as if anyone who has a belief “in between” liberalism and conservatism has adopted that belief because it’s in the middle. He rules out the possibility that people don’t care that the belief is in the middle, they just hold it because they think it’s right.
(Another remainder group could be people who believe strongly in civil debate: since there’s very little civility coming from conservatives and progressives, they won’t align with either.)
So, Limbaugh is wrong when he says that the people who are neither liberals nor conservatives don’t want to have an opinion, that they go “issue by issue” and don’t have a core. Again, libertarians are clearly remainders. Though they may agree with Democrats and liberals or Republicans and conservatives on some issues, they have positions that remain consistently unsupported by those parties, and so they remain apart (hence, “remainders” is the best term I could think of; don’t worry, I’m still taking suggestions). Libertarians aren’t trying to be bipartisan, and they clearly have opinions and an ideological core.
Not that it’s new for Limbaugh to derisively misrepresent people with whom he disagrees. But, as usual, it’s a blatant caricature, and deserves to be overturned.