The center can, and should, hold against extremes

William Butler Yeats thought the end of Western Civilization was at hand in 1920 when he wrote:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world …

Or maybe it always feels like this as a new century tries to get itself oriented.

The War to End All Wars had just ended; its sequel was a couple decades away. Technological and scientific advances were sweeping the globe – the telephone, the incandescent light bulb, the electric car.

Traditional societal relationships were also being swept away. The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gave women the right to vote while the 18th Amendment gave organized crime a foothold in polite society during the cocktail hour, with a jazz soundtrack provided by musicians fleeing the Jim Crow South.

Teddy Roosevelt’s Progressive Party split the Republican vote in 1912, keeping William Taft out of the White House for a few years, but ultimately pushed the party farther to the right. The conservatives were steering the ship of state through the 1920s, until it foundered on the Great Depression.

Three or four generations of voters later, the party that spawned the Progressive Era has now given us the Tea Party. Where Bull Moosers wanted Roosevelt to continue using his Presidential muscle to bust trusts, such as railroads and oil companies and monopolies we’d call “too big to fail” today, Tea Partiers attack the growing role of federal government.

The Contract From America, released before Memorial Day, outlines a 10-point Tea Party platform organizers hope will attract independent voters – the same ones who swept Barack Obama into the White House in 2008 – to its principles of free markets, limited government and individual liberty.

Anti-incumbent sentiment was clearly on the rise at the state party conventions. Republicans gave Tea Party-endorsed Weld County DA Ken Buck the top spot in the Senate race and state Rep. Cory Gardner got the nod for the Fourth Congressional seat, while Evergreen businessman Dan “Who?” Maes shook former Rep. Scott McInnis’ complacency over his gubernatorial bid. Even Democrats sent Sen. Michael Bennet a wakeup call with Andrew Romanoff’s slim victory.

Perhaps the two-party system needs another fundamental shift, this time toward the center where the vast majority of us stand, to hold fast against ill-considered extremes. Certainly the frankly mystifying effort to recall Fort Collins City Councilwoman Lisa Poppaw echoes Yeats’ alternative:

The best lack all conviction, while the worst;

Are full of passionate intensity.

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