j***@now.is
2009-05-30 14:35:03 UTC
The Results Are In: Americans Are Now More Closely Aligned With
Progressive Ideas Than at Any Time in Memory
By Joshua Holland. Posted May 30, 2009.
On issue after issue, significant majorities of Americans favor
progressive solutions to the nation's problems and reject the right's
worldview.
On issue after substantive issue, significant majorities of Americans
favor progressive solutions to the nation's problems and reject the
right's worldview. That's true whether the issue at hand is taxes, war
and peace, the role of government in the economy, health care, and on
and on.
Yet the idea that America is a "center-right" nation persists;
Republican and conservative activists repeat the assertion ad nauseum
-- as it's in their interest to do -- and most of the political press
corps swallows it whole.
The idea is like a zombie -- you can bludgeon it, burn it or get Dick
Cheney to shoot it in the face, but it keeps coming -- it will not
die.
The persistence of the center-right narrative, even in the face of
piles of evidence suggesting it's little more than a myth, has very
real consequences on our political discourse.
Aside from coloring the way the media covers -- and the public views
-- the vital issues of the day, it impacts progressive activists, who
even when they have the wind at their backs often feel the need to
move slowly, cautiously and in ways that will minimize direct
confrontation with the conservative movement.
Progressives have long begun the legislative process in the middle and
then moved to the center-right, when the reality is that the country
is looking for bold changes, not incremental tinkering.
This week, a new report released by the Campaign for America's Future
and the media watchdog group MediaMatters attempts to finally bury the
idea that the U.S. leans rightward. It takes a comprehensive look at
the political landscape in which we live and a look forward at
America's shifting demographic profile -- all of which reveal a
citizenry that is anything but center-right and will only continue to
trend in a more progressive direction, leaving modern conservatism
increasingly isolated in its ideas.
The study gathered public-opinion data from a number of respected,
nonpartisan polling outfits, findings from the (huge) National
Election Study series and official statistics on ethnicity and gender
to make the case. Among the findings:
On what may be the key difference between liberals and conservatives
today -- the role of government -- more than twice as many people
agree with the statement, "there are more things government should be
doing" than believe the Reaganite adage, "the less government, the
better."
In 1994, more than half of Americans said, "government regulation of
business usually does more harm than good" and fewer than 4 out of 10
thought "government regulation of business is necessary to protect the
public interest." That's been flipped on its head during the 15 years
since -- today, fewer than 4 in 10 believe regulation causes more harm
than good.
A majority (55-70 percent, depending on how the question is worded)
believes it's the government's responsibility to provide health care
to all Americans; fewer than a third of those responding to a CBS/New
York Times poll thought health insurance should be "left only to
private enterprise."
Almost 2 out of 3 Americans believe the taxes they pay are fair, and
that the very wealthy pay too little in taxes; almost 7 in 10 believe
corporations don't pay their fair share of taxes.
During a conference call with reporters, Robert Borosage, co-director
of Campaign for America's future, acknowledged that until 15 to 20
years ago, a center-right coalition of conservatives and political
moderates did represent a majority of the electorate, but noted that
the views of moderates and independents have grown much more closely
aligned with those of more progressive voters, and the result is a
center-left mandate for the new administration and
Democratic-controlled Congress.
What's more, the country's changing demographics suggest that America
will continue to be a center-left country in the coming decades. The
most progressive (or at least solidly Democratic-leaning)
constituencies in the country -- single women, African Americans and
other minority groups, young people -- are growing as a share of the
electorate, while the "Reagan Democrats" -- older, working-class
whites -- who were the backbone of the conservative movement are
declining as a share of the population.
Page Gardner, founder of Women's Voices/Women Vote, said of the new
coalition, "if you look at their views across the board, they're
incredibly progressive."
More Americans are also living in high-density urban environments than
ever before, which political scientists have long held creates more
tolerance for diversity and in general a more receptive attitude
toward the role of government in one's daily life.
Finally, the report notes that the social issues that used to inspire
not only the right but also many in the center are rapidly losing
traction -- in part because of the demographic trends described above.
Most Americans remain pro-choice (despite one oddly-worded Gallup poll
to the contrary), and while a slim majority opposes full marriage
equality for gays and lesbians, the general level of acceptance of
gays and lesbians is growing ever greater.
That a sea-change is happening in America's political culture should
be apparent by the results of the last election, a race that the
Republican party explicitly framed as a question of ideology, accusing
Barack Obama of being very far to the left -- even deriding him as a
cryptosocialist.
But the authors of the report point out, "for the press, Democratic
victories are explained away as candidates having moved to the right,
while Republican victories are confirmed as a true expression of
America's conservative pulse."
And it's not just returns from the election -- the report notes:
Conservative commentators, particularly those on Fox News, have
portrayed Obama as so liberal that his activist agenda bordered on
socialist or even Marxist. Yet according to Gallup polling, Obama's
approval ratings for this first 100 days in office were higher than
those of any president since Ronald Reagan and higher than seven of
the last eight presidents at the 100-day mark. It doesn't seem likely
that an entrenched center-right nation would reward such a liberal
president with historically high job approval.
But as MediaMatters Director Eric Burns outlined, by and large, the
media have not only failed to fully acknowledge the ideological
outlook of the American electorate, the months since the election has
been marked by the "mainstreaming of incredibly conservative views"
within America's pundit class, with "sometimes violent" rhetoric being
debated as if it were comfortably within the mainstream.
Burns suggested that part of the reason the center-right meme persists
is that many political reporters today cut their teeth in the era of
the "Reagan Revolution" and during the "Clinton wars" of the 1990s --
an era in which conservatives were ascendant.
Another factor is that there hasn't been a significant shift in
Americans' self-described ideology, as a much-discussed Pew poll taken
just after the election found.
Pew's research showed, "Only about 1 in 5 Americans currently call
themselves liberal (21 percent), while 38 percent say they are
conservative and 36 percent describe themselves as moderate. This is
virtually unchanged from recent years; when George W. Bush was first
elected president, 18 percent of Americans said they were liberal, 36
percent were conservative and 38 percent considered themselves
moderate."
The problem with self-identification, however, is that it hinges on
how one defines those labels -- an individual may say he or she is
conservative for a variety of reasons, but that same person may favor
the progressive position on every issue down the line. According to
the most recent (1997) Household Survey of Adult Civic Participation,
only around half of Americans could say "which party is more
conservative at the national level."
It's ultimately issues that get decided in Washington, and the report
issued this week adds to an already-large body of data suggesting that
Americans are highly receptive to progressive arguments on issue after
issue, regardless of with which label they may identify themselves.
Progressive Ideas Than at Any Time in Memory
By Joshua Holland. Posted May 30, 2009.
On issue after issue, significant majorities of Americans favor
progressive solutions to the nation's problems and reject the right's
worldview.
On issue after substantive issue, significant majorities of Americans
favor progressive solutions to the nation's problems and reject the
right's worldview. That's true whether the issue at hand is taxes, war
and peace, the role of government in the economy, health care, and on
and on.
Yet the idea that America is a "center-right" nation persists;
Republican and conservative activists repeat the assertion ad nauseum
-- as it's in their interest to do -- and most of the political press
corps swallows it whole.
The idea is like a zombie -- you can bludgeon it, burn it or get Dick
Cheney to shoot it in the face, but it keeps coming -- it will not
die.
The persistence of the center-right narrative, even in the face of
piles of evidence suggesting it's little more than a myth, has very
real consequences on our political discourse.
Aside from coloring the way the media covers -- and the public views
-- the vital issues of the day, it impacts progressive activists, who
even when they have the wind at their backs often feel the need to
move slowly, cautiously and in ways that will minimize direct
confrontation with the conservative movement.
Progressives have long begun the legislative process in the middle and
then moved to the center-right, when the reality is that the country
is looking for bold changes, not incremental tinkering.
This week, a new report released by the Campaign for America's Future
and the media watchdog group MediaMatters attempts to finally bury the
idea that the U.S. leans rightward. It takes a comprehensive look at
the political landscape in which we live and a look forward at
America's shifting demographic profile -- all of which reveal a
citizenry that is anything but center-right and will only continue to
trend in a more progressive direction, leaving modern conservatism
increasingly isolated in its ideas.
The study gathered public-opinion data from a number of respected,
nonpartisan polling outfits, findings from the (huge) National
Election Study series and official statistics on ethnicity and gender
to make the case. Among the findings:
On what may be the key difference between liberals and conservatives
today -- the role of government -- more than twice as many people
agree with the statement, "there are more things government should be
doing" than believe the Reaganite adage, "the less government, the
better."
In 1994, more than half of Americans said, "government regulation of
business usually does more harm than good" and fewer than 4 out of 10
thought "government regulation of business is necessary to protect the
public interest." That's been flipped on its head during the 15 years
since -- today, fewer than 4 in 10 believe regulation causes more harm
than good.
A majority (55-70 percent, depending on how the question is worded)
believes it's the government's responsibility to provide health care
to all Americans; fewer than a third of those responding to a CBS/New
York Times poll thought health insurance should be "left only to
private enterprise."
Almost 2 out of 3 Americans believe the taxes they pay are fair, and
that the very wealthy pay too little in taxes; almost 7 in 10 believe
corporations don't pay their fair share of taxes.
During a conference call with reporters, Robert Borosage, co-director
of Campaign for America's future, acknowledged that until 15 to 20
years ago, a center-right coalition of conservatives and political
moderates did represent a majority of the electorate, but noted that
the views of moderates and independents have grown much more closely
aligned with those of more progressive voters, and the result is a
center-left mandate for the new administration and
Democratic-controlled Congress.
What's more, the country's changing demographics suggest that America
will continue to be a center-left country in the coming decades. The
most progressive (or at least solidly Democratic-leaning)
constituencies in the country -- single women, African Americans and
other minority groups, young people -- are growing as a share of the
electorate, while the "Reagan Democrats" -- older, working-class
whites -- who were the backbone of the conservative movement are
declining as a share of the population.
Page Gardner, founder of Women's Voices/Women Vote, said of the new
coalition, "if you look at their views across the board, they're
incredibly progressive."
More Americans are also living in high-density urban environments than
ever before, which political scientists have long held creates more
tolerance for diversity and in general a more receptive attitude
toward the role of government in one's daily life.
Finally, the report notes that the social issues that used to inspire
not only the right but also many in the center are rapidly losing
traction -- in part because of the demographic trends described above.
Most Americans remain pro-choice (despite one oddly-worded Gallup poll
to the contrary), and while a slim majority opposes full marriage
equality for gays and lesbians, the general level of acceptance of
gays and lesbians is growing ever greater.
That a sea-change is happening in America's political culture should
be apparent by the results of the last election, a race that the
Republican party explicitly framed as a question of ideology, accusing
Barack Obama of being very far to the left -- even deriding him as a
cryptosocialist.
But the authors of the report point out, "for the press, Democratic
victories are explained away as candidates having moved to the right,
while Republican victories are confirmed as a true expression of
America's conservative pulse."
And it's not just returns from the election -- the report notes:
Conservative commentators, particularly those on Fox News, have
portrayed Obama as so liberal that his activist agenda bordered on
socialist or even Marxist. Yet according to Gallup polling, Obama's
approval ratings for this first 100 days in office were higher than
those of any president since Ronald Reagan and higher than seven of
the last eight presidents at the 100-day mark. It doesn't seem likely
that an entrenched center-right nation would reward such a liberal
president with historically high job approval.
But as MediaMatters Director Eric Burns outlined, by and large, the
media have not only failed to fully acknowledge the ideological
outlook of the American electorate, the months since the election has
been marked by the "mainstreaming of incredibly conservative views"
within America's pundit class, with "sometimes violent" rhetoric being
debated as if it were comfortably within the mainstream.
Burns suggested that part of the reason the center-right meme persists
is that many political reporters today cut their teeth in the era of
the "Reagan Revolution" and during the "Clinton wars" of the 1990s --
an era in which conservatives were ascendant.
Another factor is that there hasn't been a significant shift in
Americans' self-described ideology, as a much-discussed Pew poll taken
just after the election found.
Pew's research showed, "Only about 1 in 5 Americans currently call
themselves liberal (21 percent), while 38 percent say they are
conservative and 36 percent describe themselves as moderate. This is
virtually unchanged from recent years; when George W. Bush was first
elected president, 18 percent of Americans said they were liberal, 36
percent were conservative and 38 percent considered themselves
moderate."
The problem with self-identification, however, is that it hinges on
how one defines those labels -- an individual may say he or she is
conservative for a variety of reasons, but that same person may favor
the progressive position on every issue down the line. According to
the most recent (1997) Household Survey of Adult Civic Participation,
only around half of Americans could say "which party is more
conservative at the national level."
It's ultimately issues that get decided in Washington, and the report
issued this week adds to an already-large body of data suggesting that
Americans are highly receptive to progressive arguments on issue after
issue, regardless of with which label they may identify themselves.