Collegiality!

In which I selflessly offer Matt Yglesias of "Think Progress" the use of my suite of "No Labels" graphics from one of my posts about this subject


last year (sample: "Dead Center") so that Matt might more crisply and effectively make the points about this craven, bullshit, AstroTurf movement that he only sorta ambled in the general direction of today:

Looking For New Parties Is Asking The Wrong Question On Centrism
By Matthew Yglesias on Jul 1, 2011

I read on Twitter a number of accounts of Aspen Ideas Festival attendees bemoaning the partisanship and extremism in Washington, and yearning for some kind of centrist third party.

There’s a lot that’s wrong with this, but I think the starting point of wisdom on this score is that you need to ask yourself why the current system doesn’t produce centrist policy outcomes.
...
Now of course this does get you a lot of centrist policy outcomes if by “centrist” you mean “nothing changes.” But the same features of the system that lead to a tendency toward stasis also lead toward a tendency toward tactical extremism.
...

Perhaps what Matt meant to say was something like we can't have Centrist policies, because Centrism is not an ideology. It is a lazy, feckless delusion based on idea that if you draw a line between the two parties and divide by two, whatever result you get is the Center... Which ignores the painfully obvious fact that one of our two political parties is now run by sociopaths who have rocketed the Right so far and so fast into Crazyville that they have disappeared into a blaze of ultraviolet. This also ignores the fact that the our other political party has been mostly hoofing right along with them, but staying several paces behind so to preserve the illusion of reasonableness. This also ignores the fact that we have an entire media dedicated to ignoring these facts.

Or, if you prefer, here is a puppet show that makes the same point "The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the Congress with His Head Up His Ass While Sucking His Own Balls"

But perhaps all he needs are some pictures

to show him the way.

You're welcome!