Posted on 12/29/2015 5:48:34 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Writing in The Atlantic, Peter Beinart has launched yet another debate about America's ideological direction. Asserting that the country is becoming more liberal, Beinart argues that Occupy and Black Lives Matter activists have commandeered the national debate far more effectively than the radicals of the past, to the point that the next Democratic president is likely to be more liberal than Barack Obama and the next Republican president more liberal than George W. Bush. I think not. All evidence suggests that America is growing both more liberal and more conservative. The Left is moving Left, and the Right is moving Right.
From Bill Clinton to Al Gore to John Kerry to Barack Obama, each successive Democratic presidential nominee has run either slightly or substantially to the Left of his predecessor, and the party has won the popular vote in five of the last six national elections. Americans have moved left on sexual issues with astonishing speed, growing supportive of gay marriage and transgender rights in just a few years' time. Young voters increasingly express support for socialist policies, and the polls record widespread support for immigrants and immigrant rights. The average Democratic legislator is more liberal than at any time in recent memory. For a movement liberal, the future looks bright indeed.
Following the explosive growth of the Tea Party, a movement that explicitly rejects big-government conservatism, Republicans control more elected offices than at any time in modern history. The Democrats have endured more electoral defeats under President Obama than Republicans did in the years after Watergate. Support for life is holding steady, with some evidence even suggesting that young people are more pro-life than their parents. State legislatures continue to pass pro-life legislation at a record-setting pace. Support for gun rights is increasing. Even Millennials support putting boots on the ground to fight ISIS. The 2016 Republican race appears likely to come down to a battle between first-generation tea-party conservative Marco Rubio and second-generation tea-party conservative Ted Cruz, both of whom still currently trail Donald Trump, who's raced to the top of the primary polls by moving to the right of every other candidate on immigration. The average Republican legislator is more conservative than at any time in recent memory. For a movement conservative, the future looks bright indeed.
What remains clear is that America is more politically polarized than ever. The Left is growing more Left, and the Right is growing more Right. This is entirely consistent with other patterns, including the polarization of American religious practice, which is so pronounced that “nones" -- those unaffiliated with any faith -- and Evangelicals are on pace to soon become the two largest religious demographics in the country. America is growing both more secular and more religious, more liberal and more conservative. The middle is vanishing.
Beyond increasing ideological and religious polarization -- trends that are mutually reinforcing -- America is geographically polarized to an extent that makes enduring majorities even harder to construct. Presidential races are fought in a shrinking number of battleground states, with the ideological cocoons of large urban centers and Red America leading partisans on both sides to overestimate their strength. For every conservative who believes the path to electoral success lies in consolidating the vast conservative base, there is a liberal who believes the path to electoral success lies in consolidating the progressive masses. Depending on the skill of a given candidate and the structural dynamics of a given election year, either argument could be correct.
The truly interesting question isn't whether America is becoming more conservative or more liberal, but whether there is any single significant cultural, religious, or political trend that is pulling this nation together rather than yanking it apart. The alleged gay-rights consensus has given way to new conflict over religious freedom, a cause that has united a broad swath of conservative Americans. Failed gun-control measures have given way to increasingly extremist rhetoric about confiscation, with progressives laying the political groundwork for an unprecedented level of state coercion. Left and Right are increasingly speaking different languages to culturally distinct populations.
Our nation's shared love for Star Wars can take us only so far, and polarization can't continue indefinitely without truly significant fault lines emerging in American culture. To a liberal living in Manhattan, the facts on the ground confirm a progressive view of reality. To a conservative living in Tennessee, the real ideological competition and real energy both seem to be on the right. A nation that respects federalism and core constitutional liberties can survive and even thrive in the face of profound ideological divisions. But what if the Left isn't content to let Tennessee be Tennessee or to allow Christian institutions to be Christian? Then the political stakes will be raised, polarization will increase, and America will move into some truly perilous waters.
-- David French is an attorney and a staff writer at National Review.
> The problem is that Tennessee would be quite content to let New York be New York, but New York will not be content to let Tennessee be Tennessee. And that’s been our biggest problem for more than a century.
^ excellent articulation of the analogy.
Lincoln
The right is not moving more right. It’s just that the left is moving so far left that the distance between the two is increasing.
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The right can only go so far as strict adherence to the Constitution. Conservatives cannot go any further to the right than that. That is the end of that side of the spectrum. The left, however, can continue going left until we have totalitarian communism, which is moving the needle further left, so your analysis is 100% correct.
Because it made the most sense. Didn’t seem logical to only comment on the first 3 sentences of a long article when the rest of the article was spent deconstructing those first three sentences.
I agree about the polarization and see no way to reconcile it.
RE: FReeper’s reading comprehension seems to be at an all time low lately.
Actually, in my experience, many just skim the title and form conclusions in their head and then comment accordingly.
Happy New Year.
+1
Obama has been the cause of much of the polarization in his efforts to “fundamentally transform America”.
well, I did. and you were wrong. have a good one :)
Well said!
Fair enough, FRiend. You have a good one too.
i said this in 2000 and my family didn’t believe me then. we are VERY divided. each side is going to go more in the other direction, not move the same way.
a few battleground states, 3 to 5 percent to swing to your side, that’s all that’s left, it seems.
McCain and Romney weren’t conservative so the division wasn’t as pronounced.
Trump/Cruz vs. Sanders/Hillary will show the huge divide.
ok, you win!!! i skimmed the article!!! if you don’t reply fast all the good replies are used up!!!! lol
but it’s not a contest lol1!! I’ve read some GREAT articles when i was patient enough!!
{Obama has been the cause of much of the polarization in his efforts to “fundamentally transform Americaâ€.}
I disagree. He’s just been the latest cause. The left’s drift towards totalitarianism has been ongoing for decades. Today’s GOPe that we rail against would have been JFK Dems 60 years ago. THATS how far the liberal left has drug the Democrat party.
Not true. The left is moving overboard left into full socialism, actively taking freedoms away left and right and the right has stayed the same and gotten pissed off. They are playing dangerous games with riling up blacks to hate and harm whites and cops,and importing islamic men and allowing South American gang enemies on to our soil, attacking Christian businesses, putting conservatives on homeland security watch list, playing with our military, implanting muslims in government, attacking conservatives with the IRS, importing 3rd world diseases and going for peoples guns letting Americans know they are getting dangerous.
The silent majority is not silent at the moment. I have heard more shocking political speech in just one month in the last year from people that never speak up, than I have heard in a whole life time before and it is just getting stronger and more bold as each month moves along. Polite society, social gatherings, sporting events and friends all beyond the normal family talk.....people are pissed and talking in ways not imaginable a year ago....some of it in shocking terms not heard in my lifetime of political correctness.
I do not know how many times the need for people to carry has been brought up this year or been told personally I need to carry and not by family members(that is beyond normal American behavior). Never in my life in public have strangers or acquaintances talked about the need to arm. It happens constantly now and that speech is growing stronger. There is a breaking point when two sides get so far apart and for the first time I think Americans are watching. I do not think we are anywhere near that point but I do think that they are paying attention now and the slow boil has begun.
A real conservative president is the smartest thing that the establishment could give America at this moment. I would not want to be in power if the leftist march continues at full pace.
:)
What’s scary is this: how does it resolve itself? To my mind, it will only resolve itself with bloodshed. Either we will find no common ground and start killing each other (all that’s lacking is common geography) or we will find a common foe after being catastrophically hit here by an international enemy.
Personally, I think enemy nation states are more than happy to sit back and let us tear each other apart, probably surreptitiously fomenting discord
where they can until then.
It’s what I would do.
Left and Right are Marxist constructs. They are not natural distinctions in a democratic republic. Nationalist/globalist might be better distinctions, or Federalist/States Rights, but not conservative/liberal. They are false distinctions.
Post of the day, so far!
I think the problem is David French, an NR writer who’s overly sensitive and often wrong.
I contend this is exactly what's happened. Liberals are not content to live their lives they way they feel is right. Instead, they must foist on those around them their progressive values because they're convinced they know better. It's the totalitarian wolf that ever lurks in the progressive sheepskin.
Yep.
News flash for David French we are already there. Yesterday Mr gg2 and I were behind a lady in aldis who overheard us talking about our garden so she started chatting with us. We said we were soon moving to the mountains and she said she was too. Then she leaned in close and said we are terrified the republicans are going gto win. I leaned in and said we are terrified they won’t and smiled. That was pretty much the end of a beautiful friendship.
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