Echoing Tony Blair, Alan Dershowitz makes the sensible observation that the United States needs centrist leadership, lest the center not hold (“US needs a centrist leader,’’ Opinion, June 29). While this is undoubtedly true and does argue in favor of Hillary Clinton, it misses a larger point: Centrist leadership doesn’t get very far without centrist followership.
The dysfunctionality of our politics, nay the insanity of it, is well-explained in an article by Jonathan Rauch in this month’s Atlantic. Through the unintended consequences of political reform efforts, gerrymandered legislative districts, and the erosion of party control, we have become a nation where extremes are not only tolerated but encouraged. There is, in effect, no punishment and no disincentive to being a flame-throwing fool, stoking the fires of intolerance and an inability to compromise.
To this insufferable mix, I would add one other factor: the balkanization of the media along political lines. With people tuning in to the political channels that make little attempt to be balanced, we as consumers lean farther and farther away from the center ourselves.
We have had centrist leadership. Barack Obama campaigned and governed as a centrist, irritating many progressives along the way who had hoped for a more aggressively liberal approach. His reward from the right: He was treated at the outset as a pariah, a socialist, and un-American. Clinton, like her husband, is also a centrist, though she too is portrayed as something less than human by the right wing.
Centrist leadership would be great. But it is not the full answer. The problem is ourselves. We have segregated ourselves — both as a public and in our legislatures — into extreme ideological camps, where little discussion or compromise is possible. So we avoid talking politics when in the presence of anyone other than a “safe’’ audience, lest things get ugly.
What good is centrist leadership if Congress and the people can’t see a benefit from compromise? Just ask Obama. Or Merrick Garland.
Bob Thomas
Boston
