America is neither left nor right but centrist

washingtonpost.com

It will surprise few to learn that the big picture often slips unnoticed past Washington’s window.

The tea party movement — organic, angry and thriving — is only the most recent to take insiders by surprise. Out yonder, among shuttered storefronts and leaner lifestyles, the tea party has been a predictable response to supersized government spending and aggressive hubris.

Another movement percolating right in front of our noses seems to be equally invisible to establishment eyes. Independents — neither right nor left but smack dab in the broad middle — today constitute 42 percent of the electorate, according to a recent CBS/New York Times poll.

Approximately 70 million strong, these are America’s new homeless class, people who are equally disgusted with both traditional parties and the special interests that control them. They’re all ages, sexes, races, ethnicities, though younger Americans are crowding the front rows. Of those born after 1977, 44 percent identify as independent.

Independents as a group outnumber either party, in other words. Yet, given the hyperpartisanship that began under George W. Bush — and has accelerated during President Obama’s first year, thanks in large part to the enabling mechanism of the Internet — one would think that America were divided into hard left and hard right.

If you’re not a centrist/independent, you’re a nutter. Sorry.