Free Muzzled by Juan Williams Page B

and money goes to elected officials who engage, she said, in “outlandish and mean behavior.… You get no reward for being the normal, reasonable person.” With the money going away from people willing to defy political correctness and talk to one another, listen to one another, there are now huge financial obstaclesto anyone attempting to bring opposing camps together for rational discussions on key issues.
    There may be a silent majority of moderates in America, but they are moving from silent to muzzled in a hurry for lack of money. It is the rare voice that is given a radio program or wins election to office who voices moderate views in America. If the 1990s witnessed the beginning of a schism in the electorate, then the 2000s saw it grow into full maturity. As we look at this game, the question is how anyone’s voice can be heard above these well-funded megaphones available to anyone who conforms to the new rules of political engagement and discourse, where partisanship is rewarded while rationality and moderation are penalized and ignored.
    In the last decade, I would argue that the national political conversation has been paralyzed by factions of political correctness. There has been little real movement on resolving critical national issues or even defining those issues. The best-known players in this nonconversation are a new class of political figures. Impish, venting archpartisans have created a subculture of celebrity provocateurs who make outlandish statements to grab attention, entertain, and mock but rarely advance the nation’s critical debates. As we’ll see in subsequent chapters of this book, from national security to entitlements to immigration to social issues, the strategy time and again is to heighten the conflict and widen the divides in this country. Today’s most revealing political discussions tend to happen in a vacuum; people talk only to “the base” and preach to an already like-minded audience. That is why it became major news when, as a presidential candidate, Barack Obama talked—behind closed doors—of economically frustrated, small-townAmericans who are holding fast to their guns and God. There are reasons why this is a bold comment and one worthy of discussion. Why didn’t we have an honest and thorough debate about it? Well, because it’s a fine thing for a Democrat to say in San Francisco behind closed doors, but it’s too risky outside of those confines for fear of a talk-radio pummeling or a blue-collar revolt. So rather than be bold, our politicians shrink from challenging themselves or the electorate.
    As a result, we have rival camps that resort to spying on each other. That is why groups like Media Matters track and report with alarm what right-wing talk radio hosts are saying to their right-wing audiences. We’ve forgotten how to say what we think in front of a broader, more diverse audience, to hold an honest dialogue and debate key issues in a frank and solution-focused manner. While previous political debates in U.S. history were hardly models of civil and well-mannered discussion, more often than not they produced real results—they solved problems for better or worse.
    Compare that to the last session of the U.S. Senate, historically America’s greatest debating society, an arena reserved for leading political minds from every state who, ideally, personify the qualities implicit in the honorary title of “statesman.” The 111th Congress saw the most filibusters in American history. Once a rarely used exception to Senate rules, the threat of the filibuster has become the way to stop any debate from taking place. There is little if any value to twenty-first-century debate because parliamentary maneuvering—the filibuster—has become the primary tool for closing debate and blocking legislation. Members of Congress are elected to identify, debate, and resolve problems, aren’t they? To serve their constituentswithin the framework established by the