Politics Is "liberal" a dirty word?

rogue49 · Nov 16, 2024

You know...funny thing is...I don't identify myself as Liberal.

HUFFPOLLSTER: 'Liberal' Democrats Now Outnumber 'Moderates'
Posted: 01/10/2014 5:14 pm EST

The term "liberal" has grown steadily more acceptable among Democrats over the past 10 years. Two political scientists offer a theory for why so many Americans claim to be "independent" when they vote like partisans. And a sudden blitz of ACA insurance ads doesn't materialize. This is HuffPollster for Friday, January 10, 2014.

GALLUP: LIBERAL SELF-ID 'EDGES UP' - "Americans continue to be more likely to identify as conservatives (38%) than as liberals (23%). But the conservative advantage is down to 15 percentage points as liberal identification edged up to its highest level since Gallup began regularly measuring ideology in the current format in 1992. The figures are based on combined data from 13 separate Gallup polls, including interviews with more than 18,000 Americans, conducted in 2013. When Gallup began asking about ideological identification in all its polls in 1992, an average 17% of Americans said they were liberal. That dipped to 16% in 1995 and 1996, but has gradually increased, exceeding 20% each year since 2005." [Gallup]

Recent change is slight and potentially suspect... - Note that enormous sample sizes involved -- 18,871 interviews in 2013 alone -- make almost any change statistically significant. Nonetheless, the change in liberal identification since 2011 is still relatively small (+2 percentage points), and it coincides with key changes in late 2012 and early 2013 in the way Gallup measures and weights by racial subgroups. These changes reduced the "house effects" apparent in Gallup's measurement of President Obama's approval rating in 2011 and 2012.

...but long term shift among Democrats is substantial - Scott Clement: "While the one-year shift is small (and not duplicated in Washington Post-ABC News polls, which find 22 percent liberal in 2012 and 2013), one finding is crystal clear: More Democrats are identifying as liberals, and today they outnumber moderates within the party. Indeed, 43 percent of Democrats called themselves liberal in 2013, compared with just 32 percent who said this 10 years ago. The shift toward liberal identity has come about equally from moderates (minus five points since 2003) and conservatives (minus six points). By contrast, the trend line for liberal identity among Republicans and independents is flat." [WaPost]

MAKE A GOOD IMPRESSION? SAY YOU'RE AN 'INDEPENDENT' - Yanna Krupnikov and Samara Klar offer an explanation for why Americans are more likely to describe themselves as independent while still behaving like partisans: "When people see politics in the news and entertainment media, they see partisan gridlock and disagreement. Partisans are portrayed as uncooperative, uncompromising and angry. This perception of partisans leads ordinary people to be embarrassed about admitting – including to pollsters – that they identify with a political party. Instead, people have come to believe that they will make a better impression if they say they are independent. In one of our first studies on the topic, we randomly assigned survey respondents to two groups. We instructed the first group to answer the question “what is your partisanship?” in a way that they believed would make the most positive impression on another person. We instructed the second group to answer the very same question in a way that they believed would make the most negative impression on another person.
The results were striking: when asked to make a 'positive impression' nearly 60 percent more people reported that they were independents, as compared to those who were asked to make a negative impression." [WaPost's Monkey Cage]
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Link - for graphs and charts

Baraka_Guru · Jan 15, 2014

"Moderate" Democrats are basically what we in Canada call "progressive conservatives."

Liberal is a dirty word, except among those who aren't reactionary ideologues.

Liberalism is what made America what it is; liberalism is what will keep America going.

Street Pattern · Jan 15, 2014

I have never been embarrassed to say I'm a liberal.

In a Nancy Drew book I read as a kid, there was a reference to bread spread "liberally" with apple butter.

Hence, I have always associated liberalism with apple butter, and vice-versa.

Baraka_Guru · Jan 15, 2014

ergo: anti-liberalism is anti-Americanism

Street Pattern · Jan 15, 2014

Baraka_Guru said: ↑

ergo: anti-liberalism is anti-Americanism
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Liberalism is as American as apple butter.

Baraka_Guru · Jan 15, 2014

Q.E.D.

rogue49 · Nov 16, 2024

I don't know if I'd agree

America is becoming more liberal
By Steve Rosenthal, Published: January 16

Steve Rosenthal, a longtime Democratic strategist and former political director of the AFL-CIO, is founder and president of the Atlas Project, which provides progressives with research and data. He is also president of the Organizing Group, which creates campaigns for progressive organizations.

Not too long ago, everyone was declaring American politics a lost cause for progressives. The religious right supposedly had a stranglehold on elections. Then it was the tea party that had the political establishment — initially Democrats and Republicans — quaking. The media and the general public took hold of a narrative parroted by conservative candidates and opinion leaders: The United States was a “center-right” nation.

But after two consecutive elections in which the Democratic candidate for president garnered more than 50 percent of the vote — a one-two punch last achieved by Franklin Roosevelt — it is worth questioning that assumption. The country is getting more diverse, and as the proportion of white voters shrinks, so, too, does the conservative base. As demographics shift, so do political preferences — in this case, toward the left. A close examination of U.S. attitudes in the past decade-plus reveals that the United States is steadily becoming more progressive.

It’s been well publicized how America has “evolved” on marriage equality. Washington Post/ABC News polling last year found that, by a margin of 58 percent to 36 percent , people believe their fellow Americans should be able to marry whomever they choose — something that would have been unthinkable less than a decade ago.

This progressive trend isn’t isolated to this issue. Over the past 10 or so years, national polls have shown that the general public is becoming more liberal on:

● Immigration. The last time the nation considered immigration reform, in 2006, 52 percent of respondents told Gallup that the priority should be halting the flow of illegal immigration. Just 43 percent preferred to deal with the undocumented immigrants already here. When Gallup asked the same question last July, the numbers had flipped: 55 percent thought the focus should be on immigrants already here, while 41 percent said the priority should be strengthening U.S. borders.

● Marijuana. In 2000, just 31 percent of Americans believed marijuana should be legalized, Gallup found, and 64 percent were opposed. The pro-legalization number has since tracked steadily upward. In October Gallup polling, 58 percent of respondents favored legalization and just 39 percent were opposed.

● Big business. Americans have grown more mistrustful of big business since 2002, when 50 percent of respondents told Gallup they were “very or somewhat satisfied” with the influence of major corporations. This number bottomed out at 29 percent in 2011 and 30 percent in 2012.

Attitudes are shifting in the states as well. In recent elections, states that were once reliably Republican red in presidential elections — including Colorado, North Carolina and Nevada — have become competitive or even solid Democratic blue.

In the November election in Virginia, issues well to the left of the “Old Virginia” (read: conservative) mainstream not only failed to hurt Democrats but might even have helped them. Gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe (D) was vocal about his support for expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, while Republican Ken Cuccinelli harped on Obamacare to curry favor with voters unhappy with the law. In the end, of course, McAuliffe won, and there was little evidence that health care hurt him or helped Cuccinelli’s final numbers. In the attorney general’s race, Democrat Mark Herring defied long-standing conventional wisdom and played up his position on gun safety. Herring defeated his opponent by pointing out Republican Mark Obenshain’s weak record on common-sense gun legislation such as comprehensive background checks and closing the gun-show loophole.

In the swing state of Iowa, recent extreme weather has convinced more people that the science behind climate change is real. In an Iowa State University annual poll of farmers — a traditionally conservative set — the share who believed in climate change last year was 74.3 percent, a significant jump from 67.7 percent in 2011, when the question was first asked.

It is more than an interesting observation that America now leans left. This should be a guiding light for politicians. With the knowledge that most Americans are, in fact, behind them, Democrats no longer need to fear running on their beliefs. They should stop letting special interests on the right hold ideas and ideals hostage and start listening to voters.

And what are the American people saying? That they’re fed up with political obstructionism and conservative policies that have left the country at a standstill. They want a new direction.

Progressives have an opportunity not only to come into the mainstream but also to lead — and shape public opinion. President Obama began to do just that last month with a speech decrying income inequality. To feed the vacuum of economic discontent, Democrats ought to argue for populist solutions such as raising the minimum wage, raising taxes on millionaires and corporations, rebuilding infrastructure, investing in education and instituting paid sick leave. Americans crave solutions, and they are moving to the left to find them. Smart politicians ought to get ahead of them.
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Politics Is "liberal" a dirty word?

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