Middle American Radicals Come of Age in Texas Attack

February 19, 2010 by Eric Ward
Filed under: American Identity, Politics 
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Over the next several days our nation’s political leaders and media pundits will spend countless hours dissecting the actions of American suicide bomber Joseph Stack. On Thursday Stack deliberately flew a small aircraft into an office building housing federal offices killing one person and wounding over a dozen individuals.

The media spectacle will go something like this. Conservative leaders, who have, since the election of the first Black president, stoked the flames of political paranoia, have all but abandoned a semblance of civil society will be quick to explain Stack’s crime as the act of a “lone lunatic”.

Tea Party factions will quickly distance themselves from the action at the same time attempting to justify this act of domestic terrorism as proof of an “out of control” Federal Government. Tea Party leaders will work overtime to claim that Stack’s suicide note proves that he was a “rabid left winger.” They will point to Stacks’ quoting of communist philosopher Karl Marx in his suicide note as proof.

Of course we can’t forget Democratic and progressive leadership who will be quick to condemn the actions of Joseph Stack, make fun of the “extremism” of tea baggers, and finish up by taking some well-deserved political jabs at the Republican Party.

All of this ignores what Stack represents for the future of our nation. Progressives in the coming days would do better to turn off MSNBC and spend some time reading a book published nearly forty years ago. The book discusses the rise of the Middle American Radical (MAR) and Stack’s suicide note reflects the MARs worldview with all of its contradictions.

In 1973, the late Donald Warren released the seminal study The Radical Center: Middle Americans and the Politics of Alienation. In the book Warren analyzes a demographic of the American public that he refers to as Middle American Radicals (MAR). Warren argues that these American’s don’t fit the classic political definitions of “left” or “right” but instead are a group “made up of a distinct set of views which, briefly stated, focus upon the individual as caught between threats to his way of life from the wealthy and the powerful, on the one hand, and militant, organized minorities on the other.”

Warren states that the MARs demographic perceives itself as alienated from American life and is not easily swayed by speeches from religious leaders, union officials, and/or public officials. It is disconnected from traditional institutions such as mainstream churches, labor unions, and political parties. It is a demographic that speaks of jobs, taxes, and the economy as code words for a deeper discussion on American identity and who (and who doesn’t) belong.

Despite their wariness of demographic changes and challenges to structural racism, Middle American Radicals are not just fodder for racial extremists. One can find MARs joining political attacks on minority communities while in other situations defending them.

In 2004, the State of Arizona passed a ballot initiative to deny non-emergency services to any individual unable to provide proof of their legal status. While some Middle American Radicals supported this attack on immigrants, exit polls suggest that the majority of them voted against the anti-immigrant measure.

For over twenty years white nationalists have attempted to organize this group for its “racial holy war”, conservatives have given it lip service when votes were needed, and progressive democrats have either ignored MARs or deemed them worthy of only “bread and butter discussions”. This move by progressives ignores that Middle American Radicals want to debate “who is an American and what will America look like?” It is a debate that occurs on the historic terrain of race, belonging, and national identity. Progressive have not shown themselves to be ready for this type of debate and the results have been disastrous.

The continued push by progressives to ignore this debate by sticking to “economic issues” has only served to send Middle American Radicals into further isolation or into the folds of white nationalist, anti-immigrant and tea party organizations ready to organize them. Discussions with Middle American Radicals on policy issues such as health care, immigration, and education should not ignore or attempt to downplay the issue of race in America.

Middle American Radicals should be seen as a crucial part of strengthening a multiracial democracy. Progressive democrats should see MARs as a valuable constituency that should be engaged and organized around social issues that expand opportunity for all.

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