Everybody wants to be "Mainstream"

I wasn't going to quote this NY Times editorial, but they close with a line I just couldn't pass up.

There is absolutely nothing unfair about allowing a minority that actually represents more American people to veto lifetime appointments of judges who are far outside the mainstream of American thinking.

I don't now where to start... this is a very highly-refined class of confusion. In fact, I'm just going to bypass the fairness stuff and focus on the ritual recitation of the "mainstream" phrase. For both Republican and Democrats, anyone they oppose is "out of the American mainstream." It's one of those overly focus-grouped phrases that get tossed into a sentence in the hope that readers will respond in some subliminal way. I burst out laughing imagining the editors of the New York Times trying to fathom the American mainstream. No doubt they would be careful to observe it from a safe distance. The New York I once knew was quite sure it was nowhere near the mainstream and quite proud of it. Has Manhattan become Middle-America since I left?

I'll be honest here and admit that I myself am "far outside the mainstream of America." As best I can tell, the Mainstream of American Thinking these days is concerned with nothing beyond a television show featuring overly-emotive singers (I'll come clean, I've never watched it.) It has never been my goal to be average or ordinary. I don't even like the label "moderate"; I'm attracted to centrism partly because it is such a lonely spot these days (probably why I'm so juiced to see headlines about "renegade moderates".) I try hard to be exceptional and ask the same from my children; is it too much to ask of federal judges?

(Seriously now, I have no doubt that the judges nominated by the president are far more "exceptional" as individuals than I'll ever be. Rather I'm amused that the Times is convinced that judges ought to be "mainstream", or that they (the Times) could even recognize mainstream American thinking. )