The United States of America is now entering into a strange and uncomfortable stage where all the power of the Federal Government is consolidated on the Left. The White House and both houses of Congress are not only in the control of the Democratic Party, but the leadership has passed to the far-left of the party. Whether or not you agree with the politics of the current administration, there are several interesting dynamics that are about to come into play in the theater of American government.
First of all, the ‘center’ is going to shift dramatically to the Left. The center of the Democratic Party has been skewing to the left in recent years and should take a quantum leap in that direction in the first few months of the Obama presidency. With virtually all of the leadership positions within the party held by those on the far left, the rank and file has been and will continue to drift in that direction. Moderate Democrats will soon find themselves on the fringe of the party.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, Republicans will have two possible responses to the new order of things. They can either move right, setting themselves in stark opposition to the culture in Washington, or they can drift toward the center, making compromises in order to retain some semblance of relevance in the political process. If they chose the former, they fall to the “radical” fringe and become irrelevant. If they chose the latter, they become willing participants in sliding the center of American politics to the left.
Other interesting dynamics (which I hope to elaborate on in a later column) are about to come into play as well, including a changing relationship between the press and the Obama team, internal power struggles within each party, and an ever-widening disconnect between Candidate Obama’s Socialist rhetoric and President Obama’s governance. For good or bad, there should be some very interesting changes ahead. Students of the political realm, regardless of their party stripes, should take note of these altered relationships in the days ahead.
