What Neither the Left nor the Right will Say

As a liberal-leaning moderate, I’m worried about the current suicidal tendencies of conservatism.

You see, I don’t want to live in a one-party state. Not one dominated entirely by the left or the right. The only way my liberalism can function effectively is if it has the balance of honest conservatives to temper it. And at this point the conservative movement seems to have descended into a complete self-destructive narcissocracy.

Narcissocracy is not exclusive to the left or the right. However, there are social trends that bring one or the other of these to the forefront at certain times. In the sixties and seventies, the pendulum swung to the left, producing a dangerous narcissocracy where a large part of the country actually approved of – or at least refused to denounce – Jane Fonda posing in an anti-aircraft installation that was aimed at young Americans.

Even Ms Fonda has since acknowledged that what she did was just not right.

And politically, it backfired. The biggest political impact of what she did was to help usher in thirty years of conservative dominance by allowing the right to define liberals as disloyal Americans.

Those on the right will tell you the country is in danger because of left. Those on the left mirror the same argument back. The real danger is neither and both. We need balance. We need solid conservatives to protect the core values of our heritage. And we need progressive liberals to move us forward. Conservatives warn about the left threatening Medicare and Social Security, without acknowledging that if conservatives had always had their way, neither would exist. Liberals would like a free hand to institute a plethora of new programs without acknowledging that conservative restraint often makes their own programs run better.

What neither side is willing to say is that we need each other.

As in, “one nation indivisible.”

But at the moment, badly divided.

The pseudo-conservatives of the far right seem now to have lost all sense of self-irony – a sure symptom of narcissocracy. They see no irony in claiming the First Amendment as a rationale to make other people shut up. They see no irony in using the most inflammatory labels on anything proposed by the “opposition,” even if they once endorsed it themselves. The see no irony in using the Pledge of Allegiance as a means to shut down political discussion. They see no irony in denouncing the president for addressing school children to tell them to study hard, then setting an example of disruptive behavior in a joint session of Congress that would not be acceptable in a junior high school classroom.

Real conservatives should be worried. Yes, it can win short-term victories. Yes, it can embarrass the left and even put a stop to doing what the majority of the people elected them to do. But in the long run, it robs the movement of any legitimate role in the balance of the country.

The divisive narcissocracy of the pseudo-conservatives is now nearing the level of Jane Fonda’s anti-aircraft stunt. Is that what you want to be your place in history?