# Is "conservative" beginning to become the new "liberal"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [October 25, 2013, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-beginning-to-become-the-new-liberal/672251 "2013-10-25T22:19:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2013, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-beginning-to-become-the-new-liberal/672251/1 "2013-10-25T22:19:55Z")
A few years back the conservative movement had succeeded in making the word “liberal” something that no one in the middle (which really is the vast majority of voters) would want to identify with, protraying “liberal” as synomous with being extreme with some success. Politician ran away from that label. I put forth that the TP is doing that to the word “conservative” - creating an association between the word and the concept of extremist position … and in the process rehabilitating the “word” liberal as an acceptabe identification for many of the middle, not as extreme of a concept. So, as someone just left of center, thank you Tea Party. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_fun_ball/32/17664_2.png) [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Fun_Ball)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-beginning-to-become-the-new-liberal/672251/2 "2013-10-26T01:18:14Z")
Wow, as a centrist I sure hope so. ---
**Author:** ![cornopean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@cornopean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cornopean)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-beginning-to-become-the-new-liberal/672251/3 "2013-10-26T01:39:04Z")
liberal used to mean something akin to libertarian. that is why you hear people nowadays distinguishing “classical liberals” from liberals. What today qualifies as a liberal is very UNliberal if by liberal you mean classical liberalism. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-beginning-to-become-the-new-liberal/672251/4 "2013-10-26T01:51:19Z")
> [@cornopean](#): > > liberal used to mean something akin to libertarian. that is why you hear people nowadays distinguishing “classical liberals” from liberals. What today qualifies as a liberal is very UNliberal if by liberal you mean classical liberalism. No one but libertarians means “classic liberal” when they say “liberal”. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-beginning-to-become-the-new-liberal/672251/5 "2013-10-26T02:13:15Z")
> [@cornopean](#): > > What today qualifies as a liberal is very UNliberal if by liberal you mean classical liberalism. And many things today that count as “Conservative” are not actually conservative. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-beginning-to-become-the-new-liberal/672251/6 "2013-10-26T02:23:29Z")
> [@cornopean](#): > > liberal used to mean something akin to libertarian. that is why you hear people nowadays distinguishing “classical liberals” from liberals. What today qualifies as a liberal is very UNliberal if by liberal you mean classical liberalism. Noone has meant liberal that way in the United States in at least 40 years. How old are you? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-beginning-to-become-the-new-liberal/672251/7 "2013-10-26T03:03:30Z")
Some context - [GHW Bush v Dukakis](http://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/01/us/bush-ridicules-dukakis-for-belatedly-saying-that-he-is-a-liberal.html). It had been [pitiful](http://articles.philly.com/1988-06-18/news/26267113_1_michael-s-dukakis-paint-dukakis-massachusetts-governor). > [@](#): > > As Democratic presidential candidate Michael S. Dukakis traipsed across the South this week, selling himself as a tough fighter against crime and drugs, agents for Vice President Bush rode into town ahead of him, claiming he’s really a liberal softie. > > “A Teddy Kennedy liberal . . . clearly soft on crime,” Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican, said in South Florida the day before the Massachusetts governor hosted a crime conference in Miami. > > “Weak on national defense,” said Mississippi Republican state chairman Evelyn McPhail, as Dukakis arrived in Biloxi for a speech on “winning the war against drugs.” > > “A political soulmate of George McGovern and Walter Mondale,” scoffed McCain in Nashville, on the eve of Dukakis’ Southern tour. … > > … Dukakis sounded much like Ronald Reagan, preaching family values and the rule of law. > > “For 200 years, our strength as a nation has been built on the strengths of the family,” he said. “Families are the glue that holds our neighborhoods and our communities together.” > > Elsewhere, Dukakis deftly used law-and-order symbols for the television cameras: he visited anti-drug centers in South Carolina and Louisiana and was filmed at a flag-raising ceremony for police cadets in Miami. Liberal? Nah I don’t molest babies. Now? Gallups numbers from Spring demonstrate signifcant drops in “conservative” ID for both economic and social matters and an increase in those willing to call themselves “liberal.” > [@](#): > > In 2009, a record 42% of Americans said they were social conservatives, while in 2010, a high of 51% said they were economically conservative. This trend may have foreshadowed the 2010 midterms, in which Republicans gave congressional Democrats a memorable “shellacking” by winning a large number of seats in the House of Representatives and the Senate. > > This new survey shows changes in Americans’ ideology: economic conservatism is at a five-year low, while social liberalism has registered its highest support – though it remains to be seen whether the changes will continue. On the one hand, for economic ideology, this may be a return to the “normal” rate measured in past polls but momentarily disrupted by a number of factors over the last four years, including the economic recession, the Democrats’ control of most of the federal government, and the healthcare debate. By comparison, the 41% of Americans now calling themselves economic conservatives nearly mirrors the eight-year average (42%) observed during the Bush administration. > > On the other hand, the trend suggests that ideological attitudes in the country may be shifting. Social liberalism has grown by six points since 2001 and now attracts half of rank-and-file Democrats and Democratic leaners. It is possible that Americans are returning to a certain sense of normalcy on economic ideology, while social ideology continues to charter new ground. Numbers of course from before the implosion of GOP approval rating this last month. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-beginning-to-become-the-new-liberal/672251/8 "2013-10-26T03:12:11Z")
Oooh. [Here’s](http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/the-fadingconservative-brand/) a good bit from Febuary. > [@](#): > > The Fading Conservative Brand … > > … It made me think about how so often these days, whenever I hear the word “conservative” — a word that I use to describe myself — used in the media, and in public debate, I’ve started to associate it not with principled, commonsense, trustworthy governance, but with obstinate, reckless, closed-minded assholery. > > This has nothing to do with the standard conservative positions on abortion or gay rights. I hold those views. Though I am not as hardline on right-of-center economics and foreign policy issues as most Republicans, and I believe the GOP ought to open itself to greater diversity in its ranks (even if that means legitimizing social liberals within the party), my feeling here has less to do than you might think with any particular position mainstream conservatives hold. Rather, it’s at least equally the manner in which they hold these positions. > > When I was in college, and first became a conservative, it was the liberals who had a reputation as rigid, doctrinaire, snide, and off-putting. I’m generalizing, but in those days, liberals were the ones who were far more likely to be brittle, who weren’t willing to look around and adjust their prescriptions to changing circumstances, who seemed disconnected from the world as it was. It seemed to me that liberals had emotional and ideological touchstones in a bygone political and cultural era, and they dealt with changing times by insisting on greater ideological purity in the ranks. Whatever else 1980s liberalism wasn’t, it wasn’t attractive. … > > … This is pretty much the case with conservatism today, I’m afraid. We could argue, and should argue, over what the policies of conservative government should be today; that’s not my point in this blog entry. My point here is that there is no creative ferment on the Right, no breathing space, few places where new ideas can emerge. All the energy on the Right seems aimed at hunting down the heretics within. That, and making life as hard as possible for the opposition, not because they have something better in mind, but as an end in itself. … In the Eighties, and even into the Nineties, conservatism was the future. It sure felt that way. Now, I can’t say liberalism feels like the future the way conservatism did back then — maybe I’m just older now, and can’t be that optimistic about politics of any sort — but the conservatism we have on offer today absolutely feels like a dead end. … Again, thank you Tea Party! ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-beginning-to-become-the-new-liberal/672251/9 "2013-10-26T03:34:34Z")
Just to emphasise that these labels mean completely different things in the US and Europe … what do you call a politician who: - strongly supports Universal Health Care - maintains strict gun control (including no guns for home defence, nor for beat police) - brought gay marriage into law - is fully prepared to work with an opposition party - doesn’t believe in Creationism? David Cameron, leader of the UK Conservative Party ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-beginning-to-become-the-new-liberal/672251/10 "2013-10-26T03:41:04Z")
> [@glee](#): > > Just to emphasise that these labels mean completely different things in the US and Europe … what do you call a politician who: > > - strongly supports Universal Health Care > - maintains strict gun control (including no guns for home defence, nor for beat police) > - brought gay marriage into law > - is fully prepared to work with an opposition party > - doesn’t believe in Creationism? > > David Cameron, leader of the UK Conservative Party I would actually be more interested in what his conservative positions are. ---
**Author:** ![Malden\_Capell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malden_capell/32/5274_2.png) [@Malden\_Capell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malden_Capell)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-beginning-to-become-the-new-liberal/672251/11 "2013-10-26T08:04:16Z")
Re: Cameron, the jury’s still out on how ‘strongly’ his support of universal healthcare is! ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-beginning-to-become-the-new-liberal/672251/12 "2013-10-26T12:31:29Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > No one but libertarians means “classic liberal” when they say “liberal”. And pretty much the entire rest of the English speaking world aside from maybe Canada. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-beginning-to-become-the-new-liberal/672251/13 "2013-10-26T15:37:16Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > And pretty much the entire rest of the English speaking world aside from maybe Canada. Which matters no more than the British saying lift and boot and lorry. The meaning of the word liberal has been fairly clear in this country for a century. We can do a bit of arguing when progressive was supplanted by liberal, but I don’t think you can push that off later than FDR. I’d say it was earlier, since he appointed several progressive Republicans to his cabinet but their progressive days were far behind them. It’s instructive to note that the use of liberal to mean classic liberal is restricted to enemies of modern liberalism. Some of us remember when Libertarian changed his name to Liberal, and every liberal on the Dope took that as the direct affront it was. Language is what users do. If virtually the entire population of literate speakers have a common meaning for liberal, it doesn’t matter one whit what the word used to mean or how it is used as an insult. Using it in those ways marks your speech as deliberately confrontational. That may be a good thing - we’d stop functioning if confrontational speech were eliminated from the Dope. But you cannot ever pretend that your use is the “correct” one that everybody else should be using. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-beginning-to-become-the-new-liberal/672251/14 "2013-10-26T18:02:39Z")
That bit **DSeid** quoted from The American Conservative is peculiar, to say the least, because a lack of new ideas and adaptation to changing circumstances is precisely what defines conservatism. The whole point of conservatism is to hold onto the tried-and-true traditional solutions to problems, and when conservatives do adopt new (to them) ideas, they’re the ideas pioneered by yesterday’s liberals. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-beginning-to-become-the-new-liberal/672251/15 "2013-10-26T18:29:50Z")
It will be interesting to see what happens. However, color me in as a data point that says “yes.” 2012 was the first time I’d ever voted for any non-Republican candidate. At this point, I’m starting to take the attitude that if a “true conservative” says something, then it’s total bullshit. Of course, I’m not really any more in favor of the Democrats at this point either. It’s like the Obamacare debate. One side sells death panels and the collapse of civilization. The other side sells unicorns and rainbows with no downside. All I’m sure of is that I’m being lied to. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-beginning-to-become-the-new-liberal/672251/16 "2013-10-26T18:47:44Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > That bit **DSeid** quoted from The American Conservative is peculiar, to say the least, because a lack of new ideas and adaptation to changing circumstances is precisely what defines conservatism. The whole point of conservatism is to hold onto the tried-and-true traditional solutions to problems, and when conservatives do adopt new (to them) ideas, they’re the ideas pioneered by yesterday’s liberals. True. I lived through the 1980s and that writer appeared to have lived in a different America than the one I remember. I went to the full article to try to find what those new ideas were and - surprise, surprise - he doesn’t name any. Reagan’s America worked precisely because it was ostensibly bringing back the America of the past. It was never the future, nor could it ever possibly be. Now, when that holding action to glorify the past has reached an obvious end, a direction for the future is crucial. As that writer says, the conservatives can’t provide one because they are still saying the same things as they did in the 80s. More crucially, they are repeating the demonization of Others that Reagan perfected and has become his true legacy. That worked until the Others became a majority and so is failing spectacularly in all places except where “Us” still commands the numbers. Rod Dreher, you were right when you thought that “I couldn’t stand Reagan and the people who loved him” and you are right now when you have a similar dislike for the conservative warriors of today. It’s just that you were wrong for the time in between. The world hasn’t changed its facts. You were just wrong about them for 30 years. The only difference is that you are “a middle-aged, churchgoing white right-winger” who has never cared about anybody who wasn’t exactly like you. For a long while that allowed you to win. That’s no longer true. Well, boo hoo. As long as conservatives continue to peddle the self-congratulatory notion that their ideas boosted them rather than their bigotry, they cannot change, even if their behavior has become too distasteful for some to swallow. Now they know how their policies tasted to liberals for the past 30 years. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-beginning-to-become-the-new-liberal/672251/17 "2013-10-26T18:51:34Z")
**Chronos** , We are talking about what people associate with the label though, the perception. Conservatives in the Reagan era were successful in presenting their ideas as _a change_ from business as usual, which they managed to define as “tax and spend liberals” and “Big Gubbermint.” Reagan succeeded in fostering a “Big Tent” mindset. Conservatives now are defined by arguing over who truely belongs, how to exclude those who each subgroup does not think deserves the label, obstructionism for its own sake, and hanging on to social concepts (I have a hard time using the word “values” in this context) that only a smallish number of mostly White rural conservative voters still hold. I have no concern about this, I think it is great. They are working hard to restrict their membership to a very small tent and creating a climate in which many who might otherwise lean to conservative concepts are uncomfortable calling themselves that because of what the TP has now made the word mean. Which to some degree is where the label liberal has been for a couple of decades - if given a list of concepts to endorse many who would endorse ideas that would be “liberal” would shy from the label because of some image in their heads of what that word meant. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-beginning-to-become-the-new-liberal/672251/18 "2013-10-26T21:56:47Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The whole point of conservatism is to hold onto the tried-and-true traditional solutions to problems, and when conservatives do adopt new (to them) ideas, they’re the ideas pioneered by yesterday’s liberals. You say this like it’s a bad thing. Of course when a new idea comes out, liberals are all for it and are the ones who propose it: good, bad, or otherwise. Conservatives oppose it. We have a national debate. If it looks good it passes. As times tests the idea, if it is good it sticks around. If it is good, then everyone likes it, including conservatives. But of course liberals proposed the idea to begin with. Using our English language, the word by its own definition would mean that a “conservative” wouldn’t propose a new idea. The old ideas are fine, and solutions to problems should be addressed with moderation. It would be like saying that liberalism is bad because every failed new experiment was proposed by a liberal. None of this shows anything except that both philosophies are necessary in a society. With conservatism nothing would change to meet new demands, and with liberalism everything would change and then re-change on a dime, and we would all be slapping our stomachs with our own dicks chasing the next fad. Both ideas are sound, even though imperfect. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-beginning-to-become-the-new-liberal/672251/19 "2013-10-26T22:42:11Z")
> [@](#): > > You say this like it’s a bad thing. I didn’t mean to imply that. Both, as you say, are necessary. Which is part of the reason the current crop of Republicans are so troubling: We need sane conservatives, and they’re not it. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-beginning-to-become-the-new-liberal/672251/20 "2013-10-27T02:41:26Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Noone has meant liberal that way in the United States in at least 40 years. How old are you? Our former poster Libertarian, later know as Liberal used it that way. He was definitely “of a certain age” as we women like to describe it. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-beginning-to-become-the-new-liberal/672251.md?page=2)