I expect it will continue to be a New Deal country. These days, Schlesinger is not a happy camper. His New Deal country is history, its constituents the denizens of nursing homes and Florida retirement communities.
Nobody listens or cares.
Like the Vital Center, the Lethal Center seeks to limit respectable opinion through ridicule and ostracism. It, too, trusts the competence and good faith of government officials and, conversely, doubts that of private citizens. Above all, it is simplistic. Like Schlesinger's New Deal pragmatism, it offers a Mr. Fix-It approach that promises quick, easy relief for difficult problems. It detests the messy, unpredictable, and open-ended evolution of social and economic institutions in a free society.