A Grassroots Answer to Gridlock
A new movement, No Labels, hopes to use grassroots energy to reclaim the center of American politics.
In today's Washington Post, former Clinton deputy assistant William Galston and I write about the launch of a new movement, No Labels, that hopes to use grassroots energy to reclaim the center of American politics.
As President Obama and congressional leaders struggle to establish a working relationship, they should ponder the sentiments of the real - and very frustrated - American majority.
A Pew survey taken after the midterm election found that 55 percent of respondents wanted Republican leaders in Washington to "try as best they can to work with Barack Obama to accomplish things, even if it means disappointing some groups of Republican supporters." Sixty-two percent wanted Obama to work hard to cooperate with Republicans, even if it meant disappointing some of his supporters.
But what the people want and what they expect are very different. In Congress, the center has collapsed, and ideological overlap between the parties has vanished. Although 30 percent of grass-roots Republicans consider themselves moderate or liberal, and 60 percent of Democrats consider themselves moderate or conservative, their voices are muted in the nation's capital. As increasingly polarized media feed centrifugal forces, potential primary challengers stand ready to punish deviation from party orthodoxies. Only 22 percent of the Pew respondents thought that cooperation was likely to happen under these circumstances.
On Dec. 13, more than 1,000 citizens from the 50 states will convene in New York to change the odds. They are founding a movement - No Labels. Among them will be Democrats, Republicans and independents who are proud of their political affiliations and have no intention of abandoning them. A single concern brings them together: the hyper-polarization of our politics that thwarts an adult conversation about our common future. A single goal unites them: to expand the space within which citizens and elected officials can conduct that conversation without fear of social or political retribution.
Their movement rests on the belief that the real American majority wishes to reassert control over a political system mired in brain-dead partisanship. Those traveling to New York are going at their own expense. No Labels is gaining a thousand fans on Facebook each day. Citizens across the country are asking how they can get involved.
Will politicians listen? Here's why they should.
Our political system does not work if politicians treat the process as a war in which the overriding goal is to thwart the adversary. At a time of national economic emergency, when Americans are clamoring for positive action, our government is routinely paralyzed by petty politics. Through the summer, as the economy teetered between recovery and stagnation, the Federal Reserve lacked a quorum because a single Republican senator took it upon himself to block Obama's appointments. Republicans were only doing unto the Democrats as the Democrats had done unto them: In January 2008, as the country geared up for an epoch-making election, the Federal Election Commission lacked a quorum because one Democrat had put holds on President George W. Bush's nominees.
Nor does the political system work if politicians treat members of the other party as enemies to be destroyed. Labeling legitimate policy differences as "socialist" or "racist" undermines democratic discourse. ...
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