“No Labels” Means “No There, There” 0
Hendrik Gideons, writing at the Bangor Daily News, exposes the emptiness of “centrism.” A nugget:
“Centrist” denotes equidistance from whatever is on either side. The term pays no attention whatsoever to 1) how far apart the two sides are from one another, 2) which among them might have moved recently and why, and 3) how much. “Independent” draws its indeterminate meaning only from whatever it is — again unspecified — with which the speaker chooses not to be identified. And when such “independents” refer to political parties as “special interests,” they misuse a term employed for decades by political scientists to denote a person, group or organization attempting to influence legislators in favor of one particular interest or issue.
Do read the rest.
