In the deafening roar of partisan attacks that has come to define the government shutdown, one sound is conspicuously absent: the voices of the moderates. The traditional role of the political center—to broker compromise and pull the parties back from the brink—has all but vanished, a reality reflected in the strict party-line votes that doomed funding bills in the Senate on Wednesday.
In a functional Congress, a crisis like this would typically see the emergence of a bipartisan “gang” of senators or a “Problem Solvers Caucus” in the House, working behind the scenes to craft a deal that both sides could grudgingly accept. The Kiggans compromise bill was a flicker of this old way of doing things, but it was quickly extinguished by party leadership.
The silence of the moderates can be attributed to the intense pressures of the modern political environment. Any lawmaker who steps out of line risks being branded a traitor by their party’s base and facing a well-funded primary challenge. The incentives all point toward party loyalty, not independent deal-making.
This leaves the country at the mercy of the most ideological factions of each party. The debate is being driven by the hardline demands of the left and the right, with no one in the middle empowered to say “enough.”
The absence of these moderate voices is a dangerous sign for the health of American democracy. Without a political center to act as a brake, the country is likely to careen from one manufactured crisis to the next. The shutdown is a direct result of this great silence.