Are the American people becoming more politically liberal?

[Martin_Hyde]

While I’m just as guilty of it as every one, this thread sort of shows the problems inherent with us using the terms liberal and conservative as we do.

I kind of like how the Political Compass approaches the matter (while that is the most prominent example of this online, the Political Compass is strongly grounded in political science theory), you have two axes. One axis represents authoritarianism on one end, and anarchism on the other (actually the political compass uses authoritarianism/libertarianism, but I feel libertarianism is too loaded a word), the other axis represents a completely managed economy on one end and a completely deregulated economy on another.

Liberal and Conservative are such catch-all terms encompassing so many different political views in the United States that when you’re talking about “America becoming more liberal” or “America becoming more Conservative” those statements lose all meaning because the words themselves don’t mean any precise thing.

“True” liberalism, or at least liberalism as defined by political scientists is almost entirely concerned with personal liberties.

In the United States, you can’t really say that the “Liberals” or “Conservatives” as we use those terms, have a monopoly on concern for personal liberty. Republicans are concerned very strongly with certain personal liberties; while Democrats tend to be strongly concerned with a different set of personal liberties.

Income redistribution, welfare, universal health care, those are not liberal ideas. Those are leftists ideas. That does not mean they are necessarily incompatible with liberalism, but they are not part of the liberal school of thought, they’re part of the leftist (aka Marxist) school of thought.

Environmentalism is likewise outside the scope of liberal and conservative ideology. It tends to have more to do with leftism/rightism. People who believe in a completely unregulated economy tend to think that means we shouldn’t have environmental regulations and et cetera, people who think we should have a more regulated economy think we should. Even then that’s not absolute, though. Theodore Roosevelt was the first significantly environmental President and he frequently defined himself as conservative. In fact Roosevelt provided an excellent definition of conservative that is more or less free of any ideological baggage. Roosevelt viewed conservatism not as an ideological stance but a stance concerning how decisions are made in society.

Roosevelt felt that what conservatism meant was, you aren’t opposed to change, you are opposed to rapid change. And that you only support change when it is clearly demonstrable that said change will produce a net benefit that outweighs the damage that any change can cause and the damage that change in particular would cause.

So this debate really needs to be rephrased in one of two ways, “Are more Americans becoming Democrats?” (because that is what the catch-all term “liberalism” tends to mean in America today, Democrats are liberals is the general and totally incorrect consensus) or “Are Americans becoming more leftist?”

The answer to the first question is probably not. The Democratic party has actually always had more members than the GOP. The Democrats were the only show in town during Jackson’s presidency, after that they’ve always been the party with the most members. There were more Democrats than Whigs and there have always been more Democrats than Republicans. What does that necessarily mean? Not much, because enough Democrats have foregone voting a straight-party ticket that traditionally, despite being a permanent minority party in terms of percentage of the population, the GOP have won many major elections. The trend really seems to be more towards more people not registering as members of either party as opposed to a trend towards more party registration for one party over the other.

Is America becoming more leftist? The answer to that, is mixed. We’ve outright rejected many key leftist principles and I honestly do not see them coming back. Bill Clinton was very popular because he rolled back the welfare state. People are probably getting on board with the idea of universal health care, but this isn’t necessarily surprising. Health care expenses are getting so out of control that people who would not otherwise be inclined towards leftism feel that this is an area where the government is just going to have to step in and take over.

But Americans don’t like the idea of “something for nothing” in general, even if they are willing to get on board with universal health care. That’s why giving poor people permanent stipends just isn’t something you can reasonably expect to ever happen in the United States. There was a time when we had extremely high tax rates on the top marginal bracket and instituted some pretty leftist ideas, by and large those ideas have been soundly rejected. We’re fully 120 years past the beginnings of Socialism and by and large the United States has experimented with it like a college student will experiment with drugs, but ultimately shows no signs of becoming markedly socialist. The U.S. has always been open to incorporating certain socialist ideas, especially when they are in line with American world view about fairness and democracy. That’s why labor unions caught on, it just seemed “right” that in a free country workers should have the right to organize. It’s also why Americans rejected the welfare state and why Bill Clinton was popular for reforming welfare, Americans do not feel people should get a free ride.

Americans also dislike corruption and immorality, this is why they got on board with corporate regulations concerning food and drug safety. Americans also believe in fair play, which is why they got on board with trust-busting.

[BrainGlutton]

The article linked in the OP goes on to say:

If only there was an American political party that unwaveringly reflected these views, as a matter of bone-deep identity. You might think it would do pretty well. Which leads to the aspect of the Pew study that got the most ink: “Political Landscape More Favorable to Democrats,” as the subtitle put it. When you compare Americans who either identify themselves as Democrats or say they lean toward the Democrats with Republicans and Republican leaners, our side wins by fifteen points, 50 percent to 35, the most by far in twenty years. As recently as 2002 it was a tie, 43 to 43.

Plunge below the surface, however, and this stirring tale becomes disconcerting. Yes, again and again, the views of independents track the views of Democrats–more so, in fact, with every passing year. Pew says it’s “striking” that 57 percent of independents think government should aid more needy people even at the price of higher debt. In 1994 it was only 39 percent. When asked their opinion of statements like “Business corporations make too much profit,” independents answer the same way as Democrats: about 70 percent agree. On questions like “Are you satisfied with the way things are going for you financially?” the chart is amazing: Republicans, independents and Democrats clustered together at 65 and 64 percent in 1994. But Republicans have increasingly answered that question in the affirmative–81 percent in 2007. Meanwhile, the lines for independents and Democrats headed down, down, down, nearly in lockstep, to 54 percent today.

Pew says independents are thinking like Democrats, and that fewer and fewer want much to do with the Republican Party. In 1994 independents gave the GOP a 68 percent approval rating; now only 40 percent do. And the percentage of people who call themselves Republicans has dropped from 29 percent in 2005 to 25 percent today. But these people are not signing up as Democrats. The proportion of those who call themselves Democrats has held steady, in the lower 30s.

Here’s a riddle: What’s an “independent”? More and more, it’s an American who holds positions we associate with Democrats but who refuses to call himself by the name. Why? Part of the reason is that people say to themselves, “If only there was a party that thought like me–that was for harnessing the power of government to help the needy and protect the middle class; for reining in business excess; for fighting overseas threats through soft power instead of reckless force.” But they don’t find today’s Democrats answering to the description. A Washington Post/ABC News poll published in early June proved it on Iraq: It heralded the emergence of what might be called “antiwar independents,” who’d like nothing more than to find a party determined to end the war but don’t see enough difference between Congressional Republicans and Democrats for the latter to earn their loyalty. Fueled, the Post suspects, by the failure of Congress to change course in Iraq, independents gave Congressional Democrats a 49 percent approval rating in April but only 37 percent in June.

The pattern–Democrats losing because they don’t look enough like Democrats–is nothing new: During the 2002 election Democrats did such a poor job of selling themselves as better protectors of middle-class interests that Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research found only 34 percent of voters saw a difference between Democrats and Republicans on prescription drug benefits to seniors. That year, when the party was handed a once-in-a-generation shot to prove itself as a protector against runaway greed (the corporate accounting scandals), DNC chair Terry McAuliffe called the swindling firm Global Crossing a “great company.”

Dem candidates should take note. And distance themselves from the DLC wing of the party.

[elucidator]

Sure, if those groups are equal to begin with. The sancitity of property tends to become more clear when you have some.

Upon review: answer directed to Sarah’s post.

[BrainGlutton]

@Martin Hyde

Liberal and Conservative are such catch-all terms encompassing so many different political views in the United States that when you’re talking about “America becoming more liberal” or “America becoming more Conservative” those statements lose all meaning because the words themselves don’t mean any precise thing.

I beg to differ. In America today they do mean something. From Right Nation, mentioned above:

The exceptionalism of the American Right is partly a matter of its beliefs. The first two definitions of “conservative” offered by the Concise Oxford Dictionary are “adverse to rapid change” and “moderate, avoiding extremes.” Neither of these seems a particularly good description of what is going on in America at the moment. “Conservatism” – no less than its foes “liberalism” or “communitarianism” – has become one of those words that are now as imprecise as they are emotionally charged. Open a newspaper and you can find the word used to describe Jacques Chirac, Trent Lott, the Mullah Omar and Vladimir Putin. Since time immemorial, conservatives have insisted that their deeply pragmatic creed cannot be ideologically pigeonholed.

But, in philosophical terms at least, classical conservatism does mean something. The creed of Edmund Burke, its most eloquent proponent, might be crudely reduced to six principles: a deep suspicion of the power of the state; a preference for liberty over equality; patriotism; a belief in established institutions and hierarchies; skepticism about the idea of progress; and elitism. Winston Churchill happily accepted these principles: he was devoted to nation and empire, disinclined to trust the lower orders with anything, hostile to the welfare state, worried about the diminution of liberty and, as he once remarked ruefully, “preferred the past to the present and the present to the future.”

To simplify a little, the exceptionalism of modern American conservatism lies in its exaggeration of the first three of Burke’s principles and contradiction of the last three. The American Right exhibits a far deeper hostility towards the state than any other modern conservative party. . . . The American right is also more obsessed with personal liberty than any other conservative party, and prepared to tolerate an infinitely higher level of inequality. (One reason why Burke warmed to the American revolutionaries was that, unlike their dangerous French equivalents, the gentlemen rebels concentrated on freedom, not equality.) On patriotism, nobody can deny that conservatives everywhere tend to be a fairly nationalistic bunch. . . . Yet many European conservatives have accepted the idea that their nationality should be diluted in “schemes and speculations” like the European Union, and they are increasingly reconciled to dealing with national security on a multilateral basis. American conservatives clearly are not.

If the American Right was merely a more vigorous form of conservatism, then it would be a lot more predictable. In fact, the American Right takes a resolutely liberal approach to Burke’s last three principles: hierarchy, pessimism and elitism. The heroes of modern American conservatism are not paternalist squires but rugged individualists who don’t know their place: entrepeneurs who build mighty businesses out of nothing, settlers who move out West, and, of course, the cowboy. There is a frontier spirit to the Right – unsurprisingly, since so much of its heartland is made up of new towns of one sort of another.

The geography of conservatism also helps to explain its optimism rather than pessimism. In the war between the Dynamo and the Virgin, as Henry Adams characterized the battle between progress and tradition, most American conservatives are on the side of the Dynamo. They think that the world offers all sorts of wonderful possibilities. And they feel that the only thing that is preventing people from attaining these possibilities is the dead liberal hand of the past. By contrast, Burke has been described flatteringly by European conservatives as a “prophet of the past.” Spend any time with a group of Republicans, and their enthusiasm for the future can be positively exhausting.

As for elitism, rather than dreaming about creating an educated “clerisy” of clever rulers (as Coleridge and T.S. Eliot did), the Republicans ever since the 1960s have played the populist card. Richard Nixon saw himself as the champion of the “silent majority.” In 1988 the aristocratic George H.W. Bush presented himself as a defender of all-American values against the Harvard Yard liberalism of Michael Dukakis. In 2000, George W. Bush, a president’s son who was educated at Andover, Yale and Harvard Business School, played up his role as a down-to-earth Texan taking on the might of Washington. As a result, modern American conservatism has flourished not just in country clubs and boardrooms, but at the grass roots – on talk radio and at precinct meetings, and in revolts against high taxes, the regulation of firearms and other invidious attempts by liberal do-gooders to force honest Americans into some predetermined mold.

Of course, now we’re beginning to see cracks in the edifice as paleoconservatives like Pat Buchanan (populist, nativist, isolationist, anti-globalization) split from neoconservatives on foreign policy and business conservatives on economic policy.

As for “liberal,” in American political discourse it has definite connotations, not all of them consistent with libertarianism, however political scientists may use the term “liberal.”

[Sarahfeena]

@elucidator

Sure, if those groups are equal to begin with. The sancitity of property tends to become more clear when you have some.

Upon review: answer directed to Sarah’s post.

The thing is, at our core, we are all equal…at least, that is how we are supposed to see each other. Our color, our sexual orientation, our religion, our level of wealth, or any other quality shouldn’t make a difference. Once we start making exceptions for certain groups…whatever that exception may be…then we are no longer adhering to that principle. Your reason for holding one group out may seem reasonable to you, and my reason for holding another group out may seem reasonable to me.

[elucidator]

@Sarahfeena

… Our color, our sexual orientation, our religion, our level of wealth, or any other quality shouldn’t make a difference…

The first three on that list are pretty self explanatory. Clearly, it is wrong to deny health care to a child on account of her race, or her parents religion. Why then should it depend on her economic status? Does Paris Hilton “deserve” more health care than your child or mine? I think not. Actually, its more than “think not”, I’m kinda pissed off about it.

[BrainGlutton]

@Sarahfeena

The thing is, at our core, we are all equal…at least, that is how we are supposed to see each other. Our color, our sexual orientation, our religion, our level of wealth, or any other quality shouldn’t make a difference. Once we start making exceptions for certain groups…whatever that exception may be…then we are no longer adhering to that principle. Your reason for holding one group out may seem reasonable to you, and my reason for holding another group out may seem reasonable to me.

:rolleyes: Look, taxing the rich in proportion to their greater ability to pay is not discrimination the way Jim Crow was discrimination.

[Leaper]

OK, something I have to ask:

@OP article

A majority, 54 percent, think “government should help the needy even if it means greater debt” (it was only 41 percent in 1994).

What does “debt” mean in this case? Personal debt? National debt? If it’s the latter, which I interpreted it as, could people have figured that the debt is so huge and unconnected to their personal financial lives that they just figure, hey, what’s another two trillion - it’s not like I’ll have to pay anything more because of it?

[Liberal]

“The program of liberalism, therefore, if condensed into a single word, would have to read: property, that is, private ownership of the means of production… All the other demands of liberalism result from his fundamental demand.” — Ludwig von Mises, Liberalism

[BrainGlutton]

@Liberal

“The program of liberalism, therefore, if condensed into a single word, would have to read: property, that is, private ownership of the means of production… All the other demands of liberalism result from his fundamental demand.” — Ludwig von Mises, Liberalism

For purposes of this thread let’s stick to using the word in its American, i.e. non-economic-libertarian, sense.

[elucidator]

@BrainGlutton

:rolleyes: Look, taxing the rich in proportion to their greater ability to pay is not discrimination the way Jim Crow was discrimination.

Oh, yeah? Obviously you haven’t heard about Donald Trump Sings Leadbelly: The Prison Years. Blue-eyed soul, out of control!

[Sarahfeena]

@BrainGlutton

:rolleyes: Look, taxing the rich in proportion to their greater ability to pay is not discrimination the way Jim Crow was discrimination.

No, because it’s not just discrimination…it’s discrimination AND stealing.

[Wendell_Wagner]

Here’s a few more questions where many more people would give an answer of “Yes” today than “No”:

Would you vote for a Jewish candidate for President?
Would you vote for a Catholic candidate for President?
Would you vote for someone of any religion other than Christian or Jewish for President?
Would you vote for a divorced candidate for President?
Would you marry someone of a different religion?
Would you marry someone of a different race?

Again, what’s changed is that the line between conservative and liberal has moved.

[Martin_Hyde]

@BrainGlutton

Whether it can be made to work is also a different question, but, nevertheless: Cite?

I’ve actually cited this over five separate times on the SDMB, and it’s getting a little old.

Here’s where I always get these numbers from: Tax Policy Center, that links to a list of many tables concerning information about tax in the United States (the site itself has far more information than that listed on the page this directly links to, as well.)

The two tables to start you with on that page are “Historical Top Tax Rate” which you can compare with “Historical Shares of Federal Tax Liability for All Households” there are tables somewhere on the site that show data pre-1979 for share of tax liability but I can’t remember precisely where off the top of my head.

[Evil_Captor]

@Sarahfeena

It’s not about feeling sorry for them. With that attitude, then what’s the difference if people say, “those people are immoral…I see no reason to feel sorry for them.” The point isn’t that you feel sorry for them, it’s that fairness is fairness, and if you use a principle to protect one group, then it should apply to all groups.

Ah, I see. You are a person who believes that the law in its majestic equality should forbid the rich as well as the poor to sleep on park benches and beg spare change in the street. How noble of you.

[Zoe]

Sam Stone, keep in mind that we are already paying toward the other fellow’s health care by paying higher prices for goods at the factory where he works and higher prices at the hospital where he couldn’t pay his bill.

Another point I would like to make is that both Conservatives and Liberals can claim that they want to see the government keep out of our personal business. Yet there are certain things that Conservatives want regulated – such as access to abortions and marital rights for gays. And there are other things that Liberals want regulated – environmental regulations. health care, voter protection, etc.

In 1967 the mood of the country seemed very liberal. My boss, a liberal himself, told me that the pendulum would swing back the other way. (He said that it always did. I don’t know if that’s true or not.) The idea that our wonderful liberal country would swing toward conservatism was just unbelievable to me. I couldn’t accept it and couldn’t imagine it!

Nixon was not really conservative nor was Ford. But my, that was an interesting time! I had certainly never expected anything like that either! That was followed by hard economic times and then a conservative period which has lasted until the last few years. We’ve begun the move back.

BrainGlutton, the excerpt from Right Nation is chilling overall. Aside from that, it is not lost on me that Right Nation’s prime example of a conservative is Sir Winston Churchill. How like the conservatives to be patriotic and then model themselves after English nobility!

Of course, even liberals loved Sir Winston.

War Baby

[Evil_Captor]

I don’t see why we have to put up with any bullshit from conservatives on any of these issues any more. They’ve had their shot, and they’ve failed: they’ve put up a bunch of corrupt scumbags who’ve been running America like a Third World kleptocracy and have done their damnedest to destroy democracy from within. They’ve PROVEN they can’t govern – that’s what’s driving the low poll numbers.

We’ve got the answers, but where I’m seeing some of us making mistakes is allowing our poliltical opponents to couch the debate in the same terms they’ve been using to kick our butts for 25 years. Frex, “welfare.” WTF is that all about? What welfare state existed was dismantled under Reagan, Bush and Clinton. It’s gone, and any democrat dumb enough to advocate its return deserves to lose.

What we need to do is recognize that we live in a capitalist society and that means a certain number of us will be unemployed at any given time, and make sure that those who get unemployed have a way to eat and have shelter and get medical care. There should be no welfare to speak of, everybody who can work should have the chance to do so, and if the economy can’t provide for everyone who wants to work and is able to, the government should provide for them, rather than letting working people go homeless, go hungry and/or go without medical care. That’s not welfare, that’s just making capitalism work the way it should.

The word is “social safety net” folks.

Of course, some people have disabilities that make it difficult or even impossible for them to work, and they should have support, too. The libertarians and maybe some of the Pubbies may oppose this, but I’m perfectly OK with seeing how far their, “Let the blind starve to death in alleyways” platform gets them.

[mswas]

@BrainGlutton

For purposes of this thread let’s stick to using the word in its American, i.e. non-economic-libertarian, sense.

A number of people have disputed your use of the word. Perhaps you should think about learning more about the word and the multiple ways that it is used.

[BrainGlutton]

@Sarahfeena

No, because it’s not just discrimination…it’s discrimination AND stealing.

Taxation is neither, as you know.

[Agnostic_Pagan]

@BrainGlutton

Quite true, and the welfare state is largely the work of those parties – but that does not make them socialist countries. Their economies remain market economies. Some socialist parties would prefer something more radical, I’m sure, but even when they have a majority there are political limits on what they can do. The welfare state is the most they could achieve under the circumstances.

First, a nitpick - modern socialism /= command economies or even nationalization of industry. Cite - see V. Shaping the Twenty- First Century - Political and Economic Democracy. I dont think socialism has limited its aims because of political limits, but feasibility ones. It could not overcome the ‘tragedy of the commons’, and academia is only beginning to understand the behavioural and psychological underpinnings of that tragedy. '60s style socialism does not work and modern socialism acknowledges that.

As far as the OP, America has a weird divide between conservatism and liberalism. Conservative want free reign at the office, but dictate our lives outside of work (anti-gay rights, anti-abortion, etc.) and liberals want free reign at home, but dictate everything that happens at work. (Can’t remember who I cribbed that line from, it’s been a while. Sounds like something Dennis Miller came up with though.)

I finished high school in '88. Since then, I have noticed a dual swing between more conservative politics at both national and local levels, and a far more permissive (which does not necessarily equal liberal) society. What can be shown and said in the media now still surprises me a bit. I think both trends have more to do with the increase of the power of corporations over other social institutions.

The nineties also gave us both the weird ‘progressiveness’ of political correctness and ‘multi-culturalism’, and the rise of the Religious right. The ‘sanctimonious’ vs. the ‘righteous’. The whole rise of the ‘blue’ states vs. the ‘red’ states.

I’d say as a whole, the country has moved a bit more to the left socially, but not politically or economically. The United States is die-hard capitalist and pro-corporations, and I dont see that changing without a major upheaval - like another global war. The institutions that support it are too entrenched and too strong.

I also think that the left - exemplified by modern socialism - has realized that the private sector can accomplish far more than the public sector. Public support and legalization of certain principles is good. But public ownership and control of the organizations that implement the policies in support of those principles is not good.

Who would you rather have show up after another Katrina? FEMA or the Red Cross? I’d pick the Red Cross.

That said, I do expect to see universal health care by the end of the decade, but along the lines of nationalized insurance or a single-payer system such as Medicaid (which the industry is de facto moving towards for efficiency reasons if nothing else.) Definitely not a National Health Service. And that is only because we are finally starting to realize if we want to afford the health care we want (all the latest and best drugs, tests, equipment, etc.), we all have to chip in and pay for it together. Our current model doesnt work, and the other industrial nations have shown that, ironically, socialized medicine can and does work. (It’s ‘socializing’ all the other industries that didnt work out too well.)

I also see the rise of a coherent and rational energy policy. BP, GE and the other big boys finally realized that they are in the energy business, not the oil business. (An idea the administration pays lip service to, but not dollars.) Kyoto will be taken seriously and development of renewable energy sources will drive the next business cycle.

All of which I think will lead to more of the same. UHC will keep the left happy. Energy development will keep the corporations happy. The United States are stuck with the two-party system for the foreseeable future. They are too entrenched at the local levels, not just the national levels. If a third-party wants to be taken seriously, they should elect some mayors and state legislators first, then try for a governorship or two, before trying for national office. (Something I wish the Green Party would do, but I aint holding my breath.)

And society will continue its weird dance between social permissiveness and religious conservativism. Abortion and gay marriage will remain the dealbreakers and vote-drivers.

One final note, a strong part of European democracies I think is that they tend to value equality greater than liberty, and the US does the opposite. I dont see those attributes changing anytime soon either.

So, in short, are Americans becoming more politically liberal? Only in terms of health care and environmentalism. But we are becoming more socially liberal.