I had intended to post another comment to brother Grim's post on the Joe Klein controversy, but the comment sort of took on a life of its own. Because it represents a significant departure from the thread that developed below I figured I'd make a separate entry. In so doing I hope I'm not completely irrelevant, but this is probably a somewhat different topic.
Strictly speaking, the US has always been an "extremist" country, in the sense that it has always been a political/ideological/religious outlier within the "community of nations". It was, after all, the first representative democracy. (The more conventional term is "exceptional", but extreme fits.) There's been some convergence over time, though most of the research suggests that "they" have been moving in our direction, more than we in theirs.
But by the standards of the extremist politics of past eras hardly anything in the Democrat or Republican parties today really counts as extremism. In fact the observation made about Ds and Rs by H.G. Wells around the turn of the century--that both American parties could fit comfortably inside one British party (the Liberals) is probably still accurate (although the Liberals haven't achieved a majority for most of this century).
Basically, for all the sturm und drang of American politics the differences between the parties aren't very great. We're just capable of a huge amplification of relatively minor differences, a form of political efficiency I guess.
If there's any sector in the US that tends to harbor genuine extremism one is probably academia, and it happens to mostly be on the left right now. In a recent poll, by a group at the College of William and Mary, of US academics in the discipline of International Relations, about 15% considered themselves "very liberal" while only about 1% considered themselves "very conservative". And the latter were probably guilty of exaggerating their conservative convictions.
Sometimes it helps to employ a typology. Lipset and Raab, in The Politics of Unreason: Right-Wing Extremism in America 1790-1977, placed political groups on four axes:
1. Compulsion to broaden or limit access to power and status.
2. Pluralism vs monism (fluid vs fixed standards).
3. Tolerance vs group bigotry.
4. Economic statism vs laissez faire.
They note, however, that economic statism can sometimes be identified with the right (Huey Long and Father Coughlin, for instance). So to resolve this riddle they propose a fifth axis: social base. The social base axis moves from blue collar workers and the rural poor on "the left" to the middle class (including white collar workers and entrepreneurs) in the center, to large farmers and industrialists on "the right". They note that fascism in Europe was chiefly an ideological extremism of the "social base center." And even though it was on the right end of the first three axes it was on the left end of the fourth.
They also note that nearly all successful right wing extremist movements in the US have had appeal across class, although that they all share a "common core of preservationism".
In so doing, they are defined as right-wing and can comprise a single right-wing movement, although the unique centers of their separate preservationist goals are quite different. Futhermore, while the preservationism of the upper class and often of the middle class may be both class-directed and status-directed, the preservationism of the lower economic class must chiefly be status-directed. Therefore the common core of effective right-wing extremist movements is symbolic rather than instrumental in nature. (p. 156-57)
I'd also say that the same is probably true of left-wing extremism. The fact that the core of genuine extremism is symbolic rather than instrumental makes it difficult to define exclusively in terms of policy preferences, as both Klein and Drum seem to be attempting to do. This symbolic nature also gives it a certain recognizable religious character, whether or not it's "religious" in the conventional sense.
But why take the definition (that in and of itself will be self-serving) of Academics?
IMHO from the earliest days of the Republic, through Andrew Jackson, to Lincoln, to TR, to FDR, to 1968, and today the issue has always been class. And the left-right debate and extremism is largely irrelevant.
If you look at the Vietnam War for example, the issue framed in class terms was that middle and upper class kids did not want to fight in Vietnam, and persuaded the nation not to do so. Lincoln's challenge was that the wealthy elite did not want to spend money and blood to preserve the union (while the agrarian poor and near-poor of his base did). GWB's problem is that the wealthy elite do not want to do anything to fight jihadis, while the working and middle class largely do.
Extremism? IMHO that's a term more rightly defined as how badly interests are threatened. The current bile on the Left IMHO reflects how badly 9/11 and the perception of mounting threats (the idea of US cities being nuked being "real") had made the world-view of the Left unapalatable to many (and the loss of political support).
To me the idea of extremism is more: a. a certain consensus develops with a dominant class (usually the elite), b. conditions change externally that make that consensus no longer workable, c. "extremism" i.e. a bare-knuckle political fight develops to preserve that consensus.
It's usually the elite vs. lower classes, but could be either "left" or "right" depending on the transient frame of the moment. For example prior to the Hitler-Stalin pact the "Left" favored intervention against Hitler, the Left being essentially wealthy Communists among the leisure class. After the Pact but before Operation Barbarossa, both the "Left" i.e. wealthy Communists and the "Right" i.e. Coughlin, the Bund, etc. favored neutrality to backing Hitler. Only after June 1941 did the Left change it's views, and only after Hitler declared war on us after Pearl Harbor was the matter settled.
While Coughlin certainly had a populist slant; the Bund was comprised more of wealthy elitists. Lindbergh being an example.
"Futhermore, while the preservationism of the upper class and often of the middle class may be both class-directed and status-directed, the preservationism of the lower economic class must chiefly be status-directed. Therefore the common core of effective right-wing extremist movements is symbolic rather than instrumental in nature."
This maybe so within a Marxist analysis, where what is not concerned with the class struggle and economics is automatically not substantial and must therefore only be symbolic. (And I have nothing against Marxist analysis. It's a great tool for many uses, just not the one great tool for every use.) But I don't think it well describes the abortion struggle.
This fight has for the last few decades in America done a great deal to line up left wing and right wing "true believers" on their separate sides, and often for pro-lifers in contradiction to their class position. If you want to get at the nub of right wing and left wing extremism, I think you mustn't ignore this special issue.
The pro-life vs. pro-choice struggle is substantial at a deeper, more biological level than Marxism can deal with. (As can be seen by the malign abortion and generally anti-life policies of all Marxist states, though I don't want to shift the debate from the United States of America to Marxist states.)
Therefore, Marxist analysis is the wrong tool for this job. It trivializes what is vital and central, and does so systematically and incorrigibly.
I don't know what the right tool for this job would be, and I strongly suspect that the right tools for jobs like this have not been invented, because academia has not been doing it's job. Ironic science and post-modernism are no substitutes for a new generation of big tools of the kind modernism created.
Jim:
The extremism Lipset and Raab were talking about concerns groups and organizations that generally wanted to overthrow the state, either to leave a non-state in its wake or some version of fascism. Almost by definition, if the opposition to a certain policy (abortion, for instance) can live with a situation where their views are represented but not dominant, it's not extremism. I'm not sure everyone would consider Huey Long an extremist, because he didn't advocate violent revolution, but his leveling rhetoric sounds pretty extreme to modern ears. I don't think there's a similar broad-based revolutionary movement, either on the right or the left, today.
It seems hard to make the case that America is that extreme when it has a system of checks and balances that severely limit the likelihood that extreme policies will ever be implemented. Perhaps its a radical idealogy grounded by a very conservative system.
David:
The fact that the overwhelming majority on both sides advocate for their point of view through traditional democratic debate suggests to me that neither side is extremist. There are, of course, extremists within the ranks of both sides.
I'm not completely serious about the US being an extremist nation. However, my guess is that a fair number of Tories thought they were extremist in the 18th century. And strictly speaking, since they were the only representative democracy on earth they were, by definition, outliers.
Do you mean Tories or Patriots?
pedrog#7:
Is it more likely that the Tories would have considered the patriot Whigs of the American Revolution extremist, or the other way around?
I think you raise a couple of good points here, and I agree it merits a separate discussion.
"Basically, for all the sturm und drang of American politics the differences between the parties aren't very great."
Indeed, at the national level, the difference between the parties is quite small, if you leave the realm of rhetoric and look at what they actually enact. There is probably more difference between Southern and Northeastern Democrats than there is between the national Democratic Party and the national Republican Party.
It's a subject of some amusement to see how the hot rhetoric so rarely is reflected in real policy initiatives. We've heard a lot of harsh rhetoric about the war from my own party, the Democrats, while they were out of power. Now that they control Congress, what they're actually doing is passing non-binding resolutions (i.e., more rhetoric) while, in their binding capacities, promising to fully fund the troops.
Yet there really are strong regional differences in America, which I think is often forgotten by the upper middle and upper classes, resident as many of them are in suburbs and cities that increasingly resemble each other. You can find a suburb of any major city that is, excepting the weather, exactly like the suburb you moved away from on the other side of the country; but that isn't all there is to America.
Forgetting that -- or seeing those who are still rooted in strong regional cultures as dangerous or backwards -- is part of the source of the social tensions we've seen. It's not only symbolism at the local level: even if there's little difference between the national Democratic and Republican parties, there is a very great deal of difference from one school board to the next.
Grim:
I don't deny that there are strong regional differences. However, at least up until a stopped monitoring those surveys, around 1998, the regional differences were gradually disappearing. Of course the nascent tendency might have kicked in again after 9-11, but the trend up until that time suggests that something has been happening to smooth out the regional differences. (Inglehart's World Values Survey, but until 2000 anyway, showed that the South was becoming decidedly more "post-modern", and that the entire country was evolving a consensus about core values.) The GWOT may have kicked up a lot of dust, but I suspect that as the dust begins to settle we'll see more agreement than we suspect.
Extremism is a perennial problem, that won't be resolved by this generation. But we've capped it, and I don't expect it to overturn things in the future. It might give us some surprises, though...
Great discussion!
BTW, I've been away due to a medical problem. I had an adverse result from a colinoscopy, and hilarity ensued. But everything's much better now. Details later...
Ah, if it involves colinoscopy, you're welcome to withhold the details. I'll take your word that you're feeling much better. :)