Posted on 11/27/2004 3:49:20 PM PST by naturalman1975
THE verb "to wedge" and its adjectival cousin "divisive" are the words du jour. Appearing in most newspapers almost every week, this new semantic fashion has two basic rules of thumb.
Rule No.1: with few exceptions, only conservatives can wedge or be divisive. John Howard is often playing wedge politics or the politics of division or raising wedge issues or pushing divisive policies. Ditto for the US President. Newspapers during the past week have offered rich pickings on the divisive George W. Bush engaging in wedge politics.
Which brings us to the second rule on what makes a wedge. Issues that the Left is most uncomfortable about are invariably wedge issues. The Left deems the very act of raising these issues illegitimate by claiming the discussion is an exercise in divisive, wedge politics. Combine the two rules and the story behind the wedge word is simple: conservative politicians engage in wedge politics when they challenge those issues that the Left most prizes.
In The Weekend Australian Financial Review, Tony Walker said the US was at war with itself and Bush "has played no small role in fostering divisions for political advantage, such as his championing of a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage and other wedge issues, notably his decision to limit federal funding for stem-cell research".
Over the page Geoffrey Barker noted the skills of Howard and Bush as "wedge politicians".
On Saturday a Sydney Morning Herald headline roared: "How the wedge was won." Back a few pages, columnist Mike Carlton said the US was entering "a new dark age of conservatism" because the electorate had voted in favour of "family values and religious faith, all that stuff".
Of course, "all that stuff" saw Bush win 51 per cent of the vote, 3.5 million more votes that Democrat John Kerry and the largest number of votes any presidential candidate has won. It was all apparently achieved by wedge politics, by raising issues the sophisticates have deemed too delicate or downright inappropriate for debate. The fatuous use of the wedge word is illustrated rather neatly on the issue of gay marriage, where Bush is roundly condemned as the wedge politician. If you are an activist judge in Massachusetts or the mayor of San Francisco pushing a gay agenda by recognising gay marriage before the rest of the community has given its imprimatur, that's not wedge politics.
But if you are a conservative politician such as Bush who reacts to that push by suggesting that marriage should remain a relationship between one man and one woman, that's classic wedge politics. Commentators said it all pointed to the US lurching to the Right. It sounds more like maintaining the status quo than lurching anywhere. And never mind that Bush has said he supports civil unions for gay relationships.
And, of course, who could forget our own 2001 wedge election on border protection? Howard was the wedge politician who dared suggest that "we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come". The Left was affronted by this raw assertion of national sovereignty. It clashes with its vision of global democracy where voting is a thing of the past and, instead, like-minded leftists on the international stage get to set the political agenda on everything from immigration to abortion. On these untouchable issues, it seems that even discussing these issues is to play wedge politics.
According to Carlton, the Prime Minister is "eagerly grabbing the Bush wedge with both hands" by raising the issue of abortion. Howard has done no such thing. Other conservative politicians have spoken out against abortion, but the principle remains the same: the Left has deemed that abortion is beyond debate.
The hysteria over wedge politics reads like sour grapes from ageing hippies and unreconstructed Marxists who cannot accept that the 1960s are over, as they harp on "'bout my generation" and jive away to Roger Daltrey singing: "I hope I die before I get old."
The unwedged New Age seems to be a pastiche of '60s morality, '70s foreign policy and '80s industrial relations. The re-election of Howard and Bush has been the worst nightmare because it shows up the Left's basic problem. Too many of its members have grown old, but they have not grown up enough to realise that times have changed, the world has moved on, and fewer and fewer people want to join their party. Woodstock is dead.
And the Left is so gobsmacked that Bush won by marshalling the morals vote, they have resorted to hysterical hyperbole. Garry Wills, a history professor at Northwestern University, wrote in The New York Times last week that fundamentalism in the US now resembles "our putative enemies" such as al-Qa'ida more than it does secular states of modern Europe.
Times readers may nod in furious agreement, but that large swath of the US – known as Bush country between Hollywood and the Hudson River – realises that voting against gay marriage and believing in family is hardly a vote in favour of flogging female adulterers and sharia law. As Bill Clinton warned the Democrats in the wake of their defeat: "If we let people believe that our party doesn't believe in faith and family . . . that's our fault."
The more the Left grasps at the wedge word, the more obvious it is that its slice of the pie chart, be it Australia or the US, is getting smaller. It is playing sliver politics and it's not working.
This was great. Thanks for posting it.
BTTT
An Aussie Mark Steyn?
wedge politics includes "two Americas" and racial divisions, both compliments of the demoncrats.
Excellent article!
Perhaps, one of the many reasons nothing is working for the left is because they have a terminal brain disorder. On the left side of their brain there is nothing right, and on the right side there is nothing left. (At least that’s how someone described Arafat. I think it’s also true of the left.)
LOL!
Translation: Kerry, you sumofabitch, why didn't you just lie to the people and tell them what they want to hear?
All Kerry had to do, was be seen thumping his bible and holding hands with Tereeza on their way into church, once or twice. Who do you think quelched that Photo Op? Hint: When suggested, she said "over my dead body". They should have took her up on that offer. I'm glad they didn't.
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