Rep. William Lacy Clay Jr. (D-Mo.), was but a lad in 1969 when his father, civil rights activist and union organizer Bill Clay, became the first Black man elected to Congress in Missouri history. When at last he retired in 2001, his seat passed like an aristocratic title to his namesake, known as Lacy, who had by then reached middle age.
Lacy Clay is now 64, having added two decades to his father’s long reign over Missouri’s 1st Congressional District. Change, a dirty word around the House of Clay, finally arrived last Tuesday—a mighty gust by the name of Cori Bush, who beat Clay for the Democratic nomination.
When a machine as sturdy as the Clay operation conks out, it’s generally a sign that someone became a bit too comfortable. Membership in Congress is an endless campaign: There’s always another election looming. Most close observers of Lacy Clay would agree that he probably underestimated the danger posed by a dynamic foe with a sharp agenda.
But Bush is also riding a wave of political energy from the leftward frontier of the Democratic Party. She did to Clay what Jamaal Bowman did to 16-term Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) of the Bronx last month; what Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did to 10-term then-Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.) of Queens in 2018.
The current uprising highlights an intellectual flabbiness among moderates, of whom Clay, Engel and Crowley are all rather tired examples. To be moderate in today’s politics has become an indictment—in both major parties.
Bill Clinton, with his New Democrat movement, extolled midway solutions to political stalemates. From the GOP came an echo in the “compassionate conservatism” of George W. Bush.
No such energy animates moderation today. The passion in politics comes from the extremes, heated over the flames of social media and cable television.
Moderation lives or dies by results, and we moderates have under-delivered. The middle class has not grown. Health care is not cheaper. Liberal democracy has not triumphed around the world.
Yet, given the dangerous polarization of contemporary politics, now’s not the time to assume that moderates will always have a seat at the table. We’ve got to work for it.