Episode 170: The Shallow, Audience-Flattering Appeal of the ‘Neither Right Nor Left’ Guy
Added 2022-11-09 15:35:54 +0000 UTC"Clinton Says He's Not Leaning Left but Taking a New 'Third Way,'" reported The New York Times in 1992. "It's not left. It’s not right. It’s forward!" proclaimed former presidential candidate Andrew Yang during a 2019 Democratic debate. "Neither left nor right," reads the slogan of far-right French political party Front National.
Every few years we hear about a new, trailblazing political vision that transcends traditional party lines, leaning not to the right or the left, but straight ahead. No longer, we're told, must we conform to antiquated political notions of "liberal" or "conservative," nor must we continue to tolerate the corrupt duopoly. Instead, we can embrace a forward-thinking alternative; a third way; a modern, pragmatic and new political paradigm.
But for all the talk of moving "beyond left and right," there sure is a lot of right-wing sentiment. Rhetoric like this almost exclusively comes from neo-fascists, libertarians, and centrists – Glenn Beck, Bill Clinton, Andrew Yang, and the like – and virtually never from figures on the Left. Why is that? What political purpose does the false notion of transcending right and left serve? And why does this hackneyed concept continue to surface and resonate?
On this episode, we examine the vacuous nature of claiming to reject political categories of "right" and "left." We analyze how this rhetoric disguises garden-variety right-wing austerity politics as a novel, barrier-breaking political vision, as well as how it taps into real frustrations with political systems, but obscures and absolves the causes of these frustrations through sleazy, sales-pitch style tactics.
Our guest is writer Osita Nwanevu.*
Guest
Osita Nwanevu is a contributing editor at The New Republic and a columnist at The Guardian. You can also find his work at The New Yorker, Slate and Harper's Magazine. He is currently writing a book on American democracy called "The Right of the People."
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Show Notes
The Democrats’ best message for the midterms: democracy is in grave peril
Osita Nwanevu | September 7, 2022 | The Guardian
Andrew Yang and the Superficial Appeal of the “I’m Not Left or Right” Guy
Adam Johnson | August 17, 2022 | The Column
Forward! Is America’s latest third party marching to power – or oblivion?
Adam Gabbatt | August 7, 2022 | The Guardian
Can being a ‘centrist’ mean anything when one side is anti-democracy?
Jan-Werner Mueller | November 30, 2021 | The Los Angeles Times
Beyond Red vs. Blue: The Political Typology
November 9, 2021 | Pew Research Center
The Incoherence of American History
Osita Nwanevu | August 24, 2021 | The New Republic
Lee Drutman | September 24, 2020 | FiveThirtyEight
Rahm and Elon’s Public-Private Partnership
Jeremy Mohler | June 21, 2018 | Jacobin
Democrats Can Abandon the Center — Because the Center Doesn’t Exist
Eric Levitz | July 30, 2017 | New York Magazine Intelligencer
“Neither left nor right”: Crisis, wane of politics, and the struggles for sovereignty
Giacomo Loperfido | November 7, 2014 | FocaalBlog
The Third Way: Myth and Reality
James Petras | March 1, 2000 | Monthly Review
The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy (Book Review)
Richard N. Cooper | March/April 1999 | Foreign Affairs
Clinton and Blair Envision A 'Third Way' International Movement
Thomas B. Edsall | June 28, 1998 | The Washington Post
Neither Right nor Left: Fascist Ideology in France [Book]
Zeev Sternhell | 1996 | Princeton University Press
The Democrats; Clinton Says He's Not Leaning Left but Taking a New 'Third Way'
Michael Kelly | September 26, 1992 | The New York Times
Thomas Sheehan | January 22, 1981 | The New York Review
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Transcript
For a full transcript of this episode, go here. All Citations Needed episode and public New Brief transcripts can be found here.
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Credits
Senior Producer: Florence Barrau-Adams
Producer: Julianne Tveten
Production Assistant: Trendel Lightburn
Newsletter: Marco Cartolano
Transcription: Morgan McAslan
Music: Grandaddy
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Comments
I know we don’t tend to punch left but was almost hoping for a mention of adbusters’ “third force” thing.
Orion
2022-11-19 20:11:37 +0000 UTCI think the simplistic slogan (based on a logical fallacy as I think you referenced) appeals to the laziest, stupidest people, thus its popularity!! Let's be honest, the R's were always Kiss Up, Kick Down (based in the past on gender, white racial superiority, older being "better" etc., traditional conservative views which are well known) as the Dems have moved Neolib economically, pro-corporate, pro-Military-Industrial complex, etc., and itself become a right wing party ("center right" on the US dial), Kiss Up Kick Down is now encoded. These supporters, like the 3rd Way, are scary, nasty bullies, & it's hardly concealed at all. It's all just "Hippie Punching" now, as you note, and the only purpose of "progressives" like "the Squad" is to alternately fall in line with the Dem elites and keep "young people" etc. engaged Voting Blue No Matter Who, then be blamed when the R's who are closer to the Dem leadership win.
Mark Schneider
2022-11-10 22:26:52 +0000 UTC“Almost like a therapist or a hostage negotiator”. Amazing.
heartheartdie
2022-11-10 02:44:01 +0000 UTCJFK also used this rhetoric. There's a great book, JFK History of an Image, by Thomas Brown that goes through all the various metamorphoses of the Kennedy image.
Neil Harris
2022-11-10 02:26:43 +0000 UTC“Tonight I say we must move forward, not backward, .. upward not forward; and always twirling, twirling, twirling toward freedom.” — Kodos
Dash X
2022-11-10 02:07:59 +0000 UTCExcellent episode. I think Ronald Reagan was also fond of 'not left or right, but up and down' rhetoric. It definitely shows up in his stump speech for Barry Goldwater in 1964.
Ciaran Colley
2022-11-09 16:57:11 +0000 UTCFirst
David
2022-11-09 15:38:42 +0000 UTC
