Milquetoast Middle
Why we love to hate the patronizing, nagging, know-it-all, bipartisan, middle
The United States lives and breathes compromise — and we hate ourselves for it. Deal making, for better and often worse, really pisses us off. America cuts deals. The Great Compromise. Missouri Compromise. Second Missouri Compromise. We made mistakes. Three-Fifths Compromise. Annexation of Texas. But we made deals.
Deal making delivers a path forward by sliding along the scale of an issue. On a good day, two notches to the good, one to the bad. Ideas penned with a quill and decisions made more than 240 years ago intrude on modernity and fester ill will in our constituency. It’s the job of government to govern. Modern rereading of the Constitution seems to have stopped at “Congress shall make no law…”
Middle ground has been vacated by Blue Dog Democrats and Republicans-In-Name-Only (RINOs) leaving a gaping void now filled with silence. No one dares to traverse the sketchy landscape between tea-party constitutionalists and Scandinavian socialists. Committed loyalty to politics, the elected they only owe their party base rather full representation of the district/state/country. Any call for finding a win-win compromise with intellectual opponents promptly gets the fat end of the big stick of “principled idealism.”
The political middle is Caspar Milquetoast.
Caspar Milquetoast was a comic strip character created by H.T. Webster for his cartoon series, The Timid Soul. Webster described Milquetoast as “the man who speaks softly and gets hit with a big stick.”
The timid and ineffectual character became popularized to describe a weak, meek and submissive person. Sounds like a bipartisan.
President George H.W. Bush stewarded the end of the Cold War and rode an approval rating approaching 90 percent down into an election loss not two years later. He was hilariously and expertly ridiculed on Saturday Night Live, lampooned on the Simpsons and shared the cover of Newsweek with the title: “Fighting ‘the Wimp Factor.’” Satire is the price of the presidency, I concede, but characterizing a WWII Navy pilot as wimpy addresses his compromising and sensible nature.
My way or the highway
The age of cable news talking heads, social media and Silicon Valley algorithms brainwashed the masses to believe that a business lunch to discuss a win-win necessitates a news scroll, play-by-play commentary and a Twitter poll. Should the discussion develop into some wavering and compromise, each tribe will commence with Tweet storms and op-eds on how both sides disrespected their “base” throwing their principles out the window. There was a time when hostile confrontation transitioned into brokered details satisfying no one completely but updating our governing software for a new environment. We need some updates.
Americans like bossy leaders…
The buck stops here. (Truman)
You’re either with us, or you are with the terrorists. (Bush 43)
Take it or leave it. (Sounds like a Roosevelt)
I’m the boss, Applesauce. (Judge Judy)
Today, newsworthy politicians are the ones wearing their stances on their sleeves, be it a socialist inspiration or swastika sympathy. A speaking tour of Hickenlooper and Kasich advocating bipartisan healthcare solutions must be preempted for a live report on bathroom “terrorism” in North Carolina. It’s become far left versus far right. It’s party versus party.
America is built on compromise. We want to believe we stand on principles — life, liberty, property — or is it life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. I can’t remember what we say now.
Thomas Jefferson wrote the beautiful words “All men are created equal” that Wikipedia hails as an “immortal declaration.” In an era of kings and lords, the notion of equal sits high on a pedestal of nobility — if not for the obvious exclusions for any non-white land-owning men. Deals had to be made.
Deals had to be made in order for the future to unfold in a possibly less violent way. States compromised. Cities compromised. Men and women sacrificed. From Washington to Lincoln to Bush, deal making was the messy, complicated and necessary part of a functioning federal government.
Deals done long ago haunt our dreams — and our waking hours. Need I name a few? Bill of Rights. Electoral College. Annexation of Texas.
The deals of the American yester-year haunt us like Frank Cross’ crooked past haunts Bill Murray in Scrooged. What do they mean? Is this just? Why Texas? Arguing over what Madison wrote or what Jefferson intended or how Lincoln framed it matters little. They wrote it down. It’s law. It’s our reality. Speak softly and get hit with a big stick. Compromise is speaking softly.
Our price for living in a country of compromise is that it’s like The Good Place. It’s just good enough. Never will it be perfect. The founders sought to make this union more perfect. More perfect. There are practical solutions agreed upon by a large majority of Americans, if we are to trust polls. Should this next batch of Congressional scapegoats turn out to be the same breed of big mouth, motivational speakers who are not seeking a functioning government, but merely the spotlight, we shall purge them in another two years.
Milquetoast was named for milk toast — a light, easily digestible snack used to settle a “nervous” stomach. A snack for simple people in another time. Such a snack is now worthy of condemnation on a number of fronts — gluten, lactose, homogenization, high fructose corn syrup, animal abuse — just to name a few.
Listen to the masses. The fringe few have far too much influence. Make a deal for the future. Every issue is on a spectrum from one extreme to the other. Common sense is in between. Find it. I ask our elected officials, if for no better reason than our collective mental health, do something good. You know what that is, deep down. If you have doubts, ask around.
In case I don’t sound enough like a grumpy old man, read this one from former Congressman John Dingell. I think I like this guy.
