In Defense of the 'Wedge Issue'

At a recent Institute of Politics forum, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom was defending his actions in illegally granting marriage licenses to thousands of same-sex couples when he bemoaned President George W. Bush’s usage of the marriage issue as a political “wedge.” He had very little to say about the deeper philosophical or moral case against same-sex marriage, but rather bemoaned that it was an issue at all. This is the cheapest sort of intellectual cop-out, and just another symbol of the increasing poverty of our public discourse. In reality the “wedge issues” are important enough that attempts to limit their discussion are opportunistic and short-sighted at best, and negligent and irresponsible at their worst.

Among the long list of topics labeled as “wedge issues” by either party are national health care, abortion, illegal immigration, school prayer, gay marriage, stem cell research, and virtually any other moral or social issue worth mentioning. What do these issues have in common? Only that they offer one party a clear electoral advantage. As we should all by now be aware, “wedge” is politico-speak for “an issue which hurts our party and helps the other one.” Crying “wedge” or “division” in politics is analogous to complaining that a debate opponent is being “mean;” it might be true but it is entirely beside the point.

There are a whole host of negative connotations associated with the usage of the word “wedge” in reference to a political debate. Most clearly, usage of the word “wedge” suggests that the other side of the debate is interested only in electoral victory and not actually concerned with the question in hand as much as tweaking the issue to some form of narrow political advantage. Media preoccupation with the “horse race” between the two parties feeds into this and makes it increasingly harder to believe that politicians could really hold a controversial opinion out of pure conviction.

Alternately, usage of the word “wedge” carries a somewhat darker connotation than mere political advantage-seeking. This is the current of thought that suggests politicians are trying to distract voters from the important economic issues at hand with dramatic and irresolvable moral questions, questions that government really has no business associating itself with in the first place.

These sorts of cheap-tricks are not limited to one side of the political spectrum. While Democrats have been more vocal as of late labeling various administration initiatives as “wedges,” Republican cries of “class warfare” can sound eerily similar and employ all of the same unfortunate tactics. Neither party has a monopoly on intellectual weakness and fallacy, as any observer of politics can all too easily gauge.

The political class should show greater intellectual curiosity and strength of conviction; the best way to convince the American public that politicians are aloof from our concerns would be to continue to label issues that we care deeply about as “wedges” that are somehow off limits. Wherever you put yourself on the ideological spectrum, have an open and active enough mind to actually debate the “wedge issues” that will determine what sort of country we will inhabit.

Mark A. Adomanis, a Crimson editorial editor, is a government concentrator in Eliot House.