{"id":78,"date":"2025-05-23T14:07:25","date_gmt":"2025-05-23T18:07:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/people.bsu.edu\/econbriefs\/?p=78"},"modified":"2025-05-23T14:07:25","modified_gmt":"2025-05-23T18:07:25","slug":"the-center-holds-for-now-by-dr-cecil-bohanon-and-dr-john-horowitz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.bsu.edu\/econbriefs\/2025\/05\/23\/the-center-holds-for-now-by-dr-cecil-bohanon-and-dr-john-horowitz\/","title":{"rendered":"The Center Holds\u2014For Now \u2013 by Dr. Cecil Bohanon and Dr. John Horowitz"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally written on 6\/6\/2023<\/em><\/p>\n

Irish poet William Butler Yeats’s 1919 verse <\/span>“The Second Coming”<\/span><\/a> not only reflected on the political turmoil of his time immediately after the First World War but foreshadowed the wars and horrors that were to unfold through the rest of the 20<\/span>th<\/span> century. Yeats prophesied a “rough beast, its hour comes round” based on the observation that “things fall apart, the centre cannot hold\u2026the best lack all conviction, while the worst\u202fare full of passionate intensity.” <\/span>We are not the first to note that Yeats’s horrific image of the consequences of polarized politics<\/span><\/a> is increasingly familiar to politics in the United States.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Yeats’ observation on the dangers of extreme polarization is why, while the recent debt limit bill did not solve Unites States’ long-run fiscal problem, its process gives us a glimmer of hope. The centre <\/span>did<\/span><\/i><\/b> hold; the USA will not default on its debt obligations. Political compromise is possible in the United States.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The bill passed the <\/span>House 314-117<\/span><\/a> and the <\/span>Senate 63-36<\/span><\/a>. The progressive ranks of the Democratic Party vocally opposed the bill because it cut future spending too much, and the most conservative Republicans vocally opposed the bill because it did not cut spending enough.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Did the extremes vote differently than the center? The left-of-center organization, <\/span>Progressive Punch, rates all House members from the most progressive to the least progressive.<\/span><\/a> Using these ratings, one of our stellar undergraduate students parsed out the votes of the 50 most progressive and 50 least progressive house members. Of the 100, 56\u00a0 voted yes, and 44 voted no. Among the remaining 331 centrist members that voted, 258 voted yes, and 73 voted no. A simple but powerful chi-squared test indicates the difference is statistically significant. There is less than a 3% chance that the vote difference between the centrists and those on the farther ends is attributable to random chance.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Part of the appeal of democracy is it allows for representation of those with dissenting ideas. This is good. No one wants to liquidate those in the extremes or send them to Gulag camps as the Soviets did. Many ideas and policies that are widely accepted today were at one time on the fringes. A stable democracy, however, requires broad consensus, compromise, and mutual forbearance. This is even more important when numerous social, political, and economic issues deeply divide the nation. Maybe the “rough beast’s hour” need not “come round” in the United States.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally written on 6\/6\/2023 Irish poet William Butler Yeats’s 1919 verse “The Second Coming” not only reflected on the political turmoil of his time immediately after the First World War but foreshadowed the wars and horrors that were to unfold through the rest of the 20th century. Yeats prophesied a “rough beast, its hour comes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[815,814,818,816,249,811,813,49,817,812,809,810],"class_list":["post-78","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-center","tag-compromise","tag-conservative","tag-extremes","tag-government-spending","tag-poetry","tag-polarization","tag-politics","tag-progressive","tag-the-second-coming","tag-william-butler-yeats","tag-yeats"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Center Holds\u2014For Now \u2013 by Dr. Cecil Bohanon and Dr. John Horowitz - Econ Briefs<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/people.bsu.edu\/econbriefs\/2025\/05\/23\/the-center-holds-for-now-by-dr-cecil-bohanon-and-dr-john-horowitz\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Center Holds\u2014For Now \u2013 by Dr. Cecil Bohanon and Dr. John Horowitz - Econ Briefs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Originally written on 6\/6\/2023 Irish poet William Butler Yeats’s 1919 verse “The Second Coming” not only reflected on the political turmoil of his time immediately after the First World War but foreshadowed the wars and horrors that were to unfold through the rest of the 20th century. 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