REPORT: America: A Center-Left Nation
SUMMARY: Barack Obama promised change during his White House campaign last year and ran on a distinctly liberal platform of comprehensive health care reform, investing in new energy and good jobs, ending the Bush-era tax cuts for the very wealthy, and ending the war in Iraq. Obama won more votes than any other candidate in American history, and his victory capped off several years' worth of sweeping Democratic electoral wins.
Yet almost within hours of Obama's victory, portions of the political press corps insisted America remained firmly planted on the "center-right" of the political spectrum. "This country, even with the election of Barack Obama last night, remains a very centered country, or maybe even center-right in a lot of places," NBC's Tom Brokaw announced less than one day after Obama claimed victory. Brokaw later added, "We still remain a centered country or a center-right country when you look at the geographic distribution."
Soon Newsweek editor Jon Meacham insisted that to govern successfully, Obama had to become a center-right leader in order to match America's "instinctively conservative" streak. (The center-right press push actually began shortly before Election Day, with the late-October Newsweek cover story "America the Conservative.") And The Washington Post's David Broder warned that too many victorious Democrats in Congress had "ideas of their own about what should be done in energy, health care and education." Broder ignored the fact that surveys indicated most American favored many of those Democratic ideas.
From the press' perspective, the broad Democratic wins last November did not signify a sea change in American politics, which was how the media treated big Republican wins in 1980 and 1994. Instead, the Democratic wins last year unfolded in spite of voters' natural conservative leanings.
It made sense for partisan conservatives, eager to downplay their losses, to push the center-right claim in the wake of November's stinging defeats. (Karl Rove, appearing on Fox News the day after Obama's win: "Barack Obama understands this is a center-right country.") It's misleading, though, for the news media to echo that spin, since it's not factually sound. Still, months into Obama's first term, the center-right claim enjoyed widespread media acceptance.
"You could make the argument that this is still a center-right country," said Fox News anchor Chris Wallace in February, just minutes after displaying an on-air graphic that showed widespread Republican losses in recent elections. "We remain a center-right nation in many ways -- particularly culturally, and our instinct," Newsweek's Meacham reiterated that month. And MSNBC's Chris Matthews echoed the claim in April: "I've noted that we're right of center except when we're in a crisis, when we're left of center." In May, too: "The true north is somewhere right of center, not left of center."
The center-right trend is a familiar one. For years, the Beltway press has consistently announced, in spite of widespread issue-based polling data that proved otherwise, that America leans center-right, while implying that Democrats are electorally successful only if they're able to camouflage whatever liberal impulses they might have.
"These Democrats that were elected last night are conservative Democrats," said CBS' Bob Schieffer the day after they scored big wins in the 2006 midterm elections. It wasn't true, though. A Media Matters survey of the 30 newly elected House Democrats who took Republican seats in 2006 found that they advocated liberal positions, such as raising the minimum wage, changing course in Iraq, funding embryonic stem cell research, and opposing any effort to privatize Social Security.
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.
Even after the Democratic landslide victory in November -- following a campaign in which Republicans branded Obama as "the most liberal" member of the U.S. Senate -- and even after Democrats took control of both house of Congress and won governorships and state legislatures nationwide, the news media continued to propagate the falsehood that America is a fundamentally conservative country.
The strong job approval ratings that Obama has posted during his first months in office, during a period when he unveiled an often proactive and progressive agenda, undercut the claim that the country is center-right. In fact, 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 ratings. However, a centrist or center-left nation would.
And all indications today are that America is becoming just that. Polling data regarding a wide range of issues, including the role of big business, health care reform, gay marriage, stimulus spending, international trade, and Social Security, indicate that Americans are increasingly receptive to and comfortable with a progressive agenda.
It would be hard, furthermore, to argue that voters were somehow fooled about what Obama's agenda would be. A Pew Research Center poll in October 2008 showed that voters identified Obama as "liberal" and roughly as far to the left as John McCain was to the right. By overwhelming numbers, voters selected the liberal candidate over the conservative one.
The idea that America is a center-right country whose citizens are skeptical of, if not hostile toward, progressive candidates and policies has long been a staple of political commentary. There would be nothing problematic in journalists' relying on this notion if actual evidence existed to support it. The truth, however, is that in most policy areas, it is progressive ideas that enjoy majority support. At a time when Democrats control not only the White House and both houses of Congress but a majority of governorships and state legislatures, as well, the picture of America as a center-right country has become particularly hard to sustain.
The term "center-right" itself is based on questionable premises. It comes from the notion that combining the "right" -- self-described conservatives -- with the "center" -- self-described moderates (or in a partisan context, Republicans with independents) -- creates the center-right majority of the country. But on issue after issue, and in growing percentages over time, nominal independents or moderates increasingly mirror the opinions of nominal Democrats or liberals. The majority is center-left; it is the right that is isolated.
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Despite all the advantages they had, they still lose their grip over time. Ronald Reagan was the aberration, HE was the statistical anamaly, and this was largely due to the MAN HIMSELF, and his abilities to communicate with people and bring them together, as opposed to the actual policies he supported.
Conservative will ALWAYS be in this position too, because society always progresses. The "good 'ol days" never really exsisted and even most of those who romantacise them don't really WANT them to come back in any REAL WAY.
The rise of talk radio and media consolidation managed to hold back progress for a good decade or two but their influence in waning, and there IS a new morning in America that people are waking up to.
What does this even MEAN in the context of PEOPLES opinions? A majority is a majority no matter WHAT their geographic distribution. Does he think that acres of land have opinions?
I think so, Solon.Remember during the campaign, many of the brainwashed Palinites were noting the size of Alaska as a real plus for her governing experience.
Look at that electoral map. There seems to be an increase in conservatism in areas where there are more rocks and dirt than human brains.
I can only conclude that the closer ones IQ is to that of a boulder or chuckwalla, the more likely it is one will vote Republican.
Land doesn't have an opinion but states do -- they all elect exactly two senators regardless of how many people are in the state. The more sparsely populated rural states tend to vote GOP more than the more heavily and densely populated states, giving them a structural advantage politically.
If tomorrow 99.9% of the American people moved to California and New York state, the other 48 states would still each have two senators (and at least one member of the House of Representatives). Each state would also maintain its' shared sovereignty with the Federal government.
And 34 of those states' legislatures can call for a constitutional convention. And with the ratification of 38 of the states they can enact into law the banning of liberals in the United States of America under penalty of execution as determined by whether one will take a loyalty oath to whomever hosts the radio show with the most station outlets run by Clear Channel. Troublesome contradictory amendments can be repealed as necessary.
It would seem so...
As for your premise that it does not matter, I will second your opinion there.
I think by and large this election was about We the People waking up just in time to see that our country was in big damn trouble.
Not that many expected Obama to be a miracle worker or even a liberal.
The fact remains that if McCain/Palin win, this country dies at the hands of right-wing fanaticism!! It is alive, but on life-support, no thanks to the clowns that still have not left town...
These are not the droids you are looking for.
The righties never cease to amaze me in their disdain for democracy.
H
owever, you clearly DON'T love democracy because you question the motives behind a person's vote because you don't like who they pulled the lever for.
I haven't heard about anything but health insurance. The others don't deal with life itself. Actual life itself and one's physical health are qualitatively very different from the materialistic aspects of life that the others insurances protect.
There is also the demoralizing psychological effect on everyone who's aware that there are huge numbers of people in your group, your country, who are physically suffering for a lack of material resources. One don't give nearly as much thought to whether others can afford auto insurance, etc.-- it's not a gut-level primal thing like physical pain and discomfort and unnecessary death.