The key fallacy of sincere "Moderate" Democrats.
They confuse the status quo with the comfort zone of most Americans. They assume most Americans are more comfortable with tweaking business as usual than with attempting significant systematic changes. That may be more true some times than others, but in reality it has never been fundamentally true. It has been true only for those who come out way ahead under the existing status quo at any given time, and that has always only been true for a small minority of Americans.
Things were never better for most Americans than they were in the decades immediately after World War Two. The G.I. Bill of Rights opened up a middle class lifestyle to millions of Americans. We had the means to pay for it then without putting a squeeze on the elite because America's potential global economic rivals were still climbing out from the wreckage of a major war fought in their homelands. Good times as they say, pretty much as good as it gets without major societal changes, and still there was discomfort and unrest brewing in the so called silent majority. American minorities were severely repressed, rural poverty was rampant, seniors couldn't afford healthcare. There was a reason for massive non violent civil disobedience campaigns. There was a reason why LBJ's Great Society agenda was both badly needed and widely embraced. Mind numbing calls for conformity and obedience to authority and unrelenting sexual repression chafed at the American spirit. There was a reason for the the cultural revolution that swept America in the 60's. And that was in the so called best of times.
These are not the best of times. The status quo is not working for most Americans and moderation virtually by definition venerates the status quo and seeks to not unduly unsettle it. Americans only embrace, reluctantly, an unsatisfactory status quo if they fear the possible effects of change more than they fear the daily circumstances they now live under. Fear has propped up the American status quo ever since the late 70's, but the burden of fear is shifting now. Increasingly Americans fear the future that our current course is steering us toward more than they do potential changes that might avoid that fate.
The 2008 election was a vote for change. Rightly or wrongly in retrospect, Barack Obama represented hope and change as he seemingly ushered in a new day for our nation under new generational leadership that embraced the multi-cultural potential of modern America. The 2010 election was also a vote for change, albeit with a much lower voter turnout as many of those who (perhaps unrealistically) expected more from the change regime they ushered in than what they perceived getting from it. The Right in America positioned themselves to run against the status quo, it was not moderation they were preaching, it was regression to simpler seemingly idyllic time when big government didn't get in the way of the true aspirations of most Americans. That day never existed but it was the future they promised, coupled with constant fear mongering that the end days were near if America didn't radically change course - to the right.
Since 2010 hope for change from both ends of the political spectrum has not yet fully rebounded from the disillusionment both ends suffered over the last six years. But the pain and fear factors have continued to rise. Americans are not comfortable with the center of American politics, though many may still be resigned to it. But for how much longer?
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