re: #49 sagehen

The “center” is not at all anchored.

When Nixon signed EPA, OSHA, Affirmative Action, Title IX, Title X, he was as far right as anybody who could possibly have been elected at the time. The only people further right were fringey newsletter types, people too far right to be allowed to speak at the convention, and random third party wackjobs. Every one of those policies is at the leftiest edge of today’s Congress and State Legislatures.

Today’s center is not 1972’s center.

Hell, today’s center isn’t even 1992’s center.

In 1992, the idea of an individual mandate for health insurance was a conservative Republican idea from Heritage that the GOP flogged as an alternative to Hillarycare. Today it’s law in the form of the ACA. At the same time, the liberal to moderate Republicans of 1992 are now Democrats and the GOP itself has shifted back to Bircher territory, with a healthy dose of Dixiecrat tossed in for good measure.