All the political centrists in America—both of them—are disappointed that a group called No Labels couldn’t find a viable candidate to head its presidential ticket. You know, there was a time when the country indeed had a cultural and political center.
“Liberals” and “conservatives” were the ends of the spectrum, but the core constituency was in the middle, where stridency was deplored and moderation reigned. No more. Moderates have gravitated outward to one camp or the other, pushing liberals and conservatives in the wings into extreme positions.
Actually, the dichotomy is even more pronounced than that—we’re now a country of fer ’em and agin ’em. Donald Trump that is. One is either for him or against him, or at least the idea of him. Technically, there is another person in the White House race, but his “supporters” really are just agin the other guy.
It all reminds me of an earlier day in America when the West was being settled one soddie at a time and society was problematic. The Unforgiven, a novel by Alan LeMay, reflected that period in all its tumult. LeMay specialized in Westerns and two of his stories were made into popular movies—The Unforgiven and The Searchers.
His novels were beautifully written in the vernacular of the 1870s. Here’s a passage from The Unforgiven about signs of spring in Texas: “Part of it was the good smells, of cows and horses, and leather, and beans boiling and salt pork frying, sometimes the spice of trampled sage; while everywhere and above all, the fragrance of young grass responding to the rains made a magic like nothing else ever known. It rose upon a new warmth, gentle, moist, and living, from the unlocked vitality of the earth itself—the smell of hope, of promise, of a world reborn. Under the ground and upon it and in the air, every winter-deadened thing awoke, turned young and eager; and human hearts rose singing in answer.”
Springtime was hopeful, in other words, but precarious, too. For there weren’t any moderates in north Texas in the 1870s, no fences and no fence-sitters. Survival required sturdy resolve. While live and let live was an acceptable attitude, it was espoused in the larger framework of a willingness to kill or be killed.
The Zachary family of the novel lived for ranching but was prepared to die in defense of itself. In the end, most family members survived. The key to survival then and now? Look inward, look outward, and resolve to defend yourself against those who utterly disrespect who you are.
Such posturing turns into tragedy when our inner selves find nothing in common with the core being of those arrayed against us. Nothing there to bridge differences, to hold us all together in a semblance of mutual respect. So, we wage war until one or the other is vanquished.
It was a pretty primitive social order in the 1870s and is again.