What Exactly Is Jonathan Rauch Trying To Say?

Hugh Hewitt has asked for some feedback on the following comment by Jonathan Rauch of the Atlantic.

On balance it is probably healthier if religious conservatives are inside the political system than if they operate as insurgents and provocateurs on the outside. Better they should write anti-abortion planks into the Republican platform than bomb abortion clinics. The same is true of the left. The clashes over civil rights and Vietnam turned into street warfare partly because activists were locked out of their own party establishments and had to fight, literally, to be heard. When Michael Moore receives a hero's welcome at the Democratic National Convention, we moderates grumble; but if the parties engage fierce activists while marginalizing tame centrists, that is probably better for the social peace than the other way around.

To be honest - when I read this I scratch my head and wonder what point Rauch is trying to make. Make the fringe the center and the center the fringe?

It is better to be a lawmaker than a person who plants bombs? Well duh. I half expect Rauch's next metaphor to be "it is better to be a hammer than a nail" and then break out into a Simon and Garfunkel medley. Bluntly put - the first part of Rauch's statement is just stupid.

Clashes over Vietnam led to Lyndon Johnson not seeking re-election, the rise of Eugene McCarthy, Bobby Kennedy going anti-war and joining the fray for the nomination and in 1972 to the nomination of McGovern as the Democratic nominee. That's being locked out of the process? The centrists in the Democratic Party have been marginalized since 1968. It is the centrists who are locked out. You can ask Zell Miller about that if you like.

It is not a voice in the process that is a problem for the Democrats. It is an identity.

With FDR they had a leader who literally embodied a "new deal" and who embraced unions. He gave the Democrats an identity and something to believe in. The Democrats became the party of the working family and the union man.

JFK gave them an additional identity with a simple phone call to Martin Luther King Jr. while he was in jail. With that call the Party of Lincoln was usurped as the party of civil rights.

The Vietnam War did not really add to the identity - it took away. How could the union Archie Bunker and the anti-war Meathead share the same party? You could replace Archie with Zell Miller or Meathead with Michael Moore and the analogy still works.

Today the Democrats have no real identity to hold their center together and this vacuum allows the pro-abortion folks and the gay rights folks to fill the void and take charge. The Republicans on the other hand have a clear identity (especially post 9/11) and I'd be willing to bet that the registered Democrat Archie Bunkers of the country put George W. Bush over the top the past two elections.

The last comment I'll make on the quote is that if by "better for the social peace" Rauch means better for the country because it keeps getting Republicans elected - then I guess I agree with him.