Will Moderates Defeat Moderation?

E J Dionne, Washington Post

excerpts:

• The deficit that should most worry us is a deficit of reasonableness. [Comment:  An appeal to reason?]
• the problem we face isn't about structures or the party system. It's about ideology -- specifically a right-wing ideology that has temporarily taken over the Republican Party [Comment: The Colin Powell argument]
• A centrist third party would divide the opposition to the right wing and ease its triumph[ Comment: A rift amongst Democrats?  I think this is an appeal to bring people back to Obama, who is losing the swing voters.]
• However we manage it, in other words, government will be required to pay an ever larger share of our nation's health care bills. [ Comment: The crux of the problem.  Why is this bigger government inevitable?  Why must George be required to pay Paul's medical bills?]
• Yet the only revenue conservatives on the supercommittee put on the table involved $300 billion from ill-defined tax reforms [ Comment:  He makes a claim here that is a bit questionable.  He claims that the Republicans wanted to make the Bush Tax Cuts permanent.  However, that tax increase is already baked into the cake, so to speak.  By agreeing to nothing, taxes will go up anyway.  What's he complaining about?  He's already getting what he claims he wanted, but that's not enough.]
• Progressives would propose fewer spending cuts in exchange for tax increases that would fall mainly on the wealthy [ Comment:  So he says that Democrats are being reasonable?]
• We need moderation all right, but a moderate third party is the one way to guarantee we won't get it.

Comment:

Everything Dionne says here is not going to be possible politically, unless the Republican or Tea Party caves in to their demands.  Why would Republicans cave in on taxes in exchange for nebulous spending cuts?  If history is any guide, the cuts will be illusory, but the tax increases won't be. Dionne admits that, too. The decision needed is one on ideology, just as Dionne suggests, but moderation is not an ideology.  Yet Dionne advocates his favored ideology at the expense of another he claims exists.  The "progressives" need a bogey man, and the opposition fulfills that requirement.  It is an argument not for moderation, but for more partisanship.