Posted on 03/06/2014 7:50:44 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
A couple months ago, a Gallup poll recorded a small uptick in the percentage of Americans who identify as liberal to 23 percent, or what Gallup, eliding the margin of error in the poll, called a new high. My Post colleague Chris Cillizza wondered if liberal was no longer a dirty word.
We will see. After all, there were far more conservatives in that Gallup poll, which, for some, means were still a center-right nation. But whether people call themselves conservative isnt necessarily that telling in the first place. A recent book by two political scientists shows that liberal may be a dirty word, but liberalism is alive and well even among people who call themselves conservative.
In Ideology in America, Christopher Ellis and James Stimson describe a striking disjuncture. When identifying themselves in a word, Americans choose conservative far more than liberal. In fact they have done so for 70 years, and increasingly so since the early 1960s.
But when it comes to saying what the government should actually do, the public appears more liberal than conservative. Ellis and Stimson gathered 7,000 survey questions dating back to 1956 that asked some variant of whether the government should do more, less, or the same in lots of different policy areas. On average, liberal responses were more common than conservative responses....
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
They’re confusing RINO’s for conservatives.
The MSM demonizes conservatives and Republicans 24-7 for fifty years straight and ‘liberal’ is a dirty word? Mr. Sides is a lousy con man.
I’m burning up.
From “The Monkey Cage”??? An appropriate source, to say the least.
Since it’s not the complete works of Shakespeare, I can only surmise that the WP has a bit fewer than an infinite number of monkeys in their employ.
America demands Justice for the Fallen of Benghazi! |
There’s no question that many people who self-identify as conservatives are actually liberal. Otherwise every election would be a right-wing landslide.
This article is a reach, isn’t it? We’re all closet liberals, yeah right! It’s more like most Americans are closet conservatives. Keep trying Mr. Sides. I know your liberal world is crashing all around you and you’re desperate to keep it afloat.
Bad is good.
No. By which I mean yes.
And then, there’s that. But I’m actually serious. My batcrap SIL is a flaming liberal feminist & this is her favorite premise. Sick stuff.
I think the answer is: they don't call themselves liberals because they are "moderates". Republicans are "far right", and Tea Party types are "extremists".
This position is backed up by the "unbiased" media, so it all fits together nicely.
Does the Washington Post come in ‘quilted’, or does it only come in ‘chafe’???
There are a lot of people who are philosophically conservative but operationally liberal.
In general they support the idea of low taxes and small government.
In practice they vote for politicians that promise low taxes for people like themselves and expanding government programs for people like themselves.
A farmer who makes $100k a year supports higher taxes “on the rich” like people making more than $500k or $1m per year but lower taxes on regular folk like themselves.
They are against welfare queens in the inner city having more and more children at the taxpayer expense but support farm subsidies because “other countries are doing it and this just brings us to a level playing field.”
This position is backed up by the “unbiased” media, so it all fits together nicely.
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This is just payback because a few ‘dared’ mention that 2 of their icons JFK and MLK Jr would be Conservative by today’s standards, though ‘far left’ back in the 60’s....
They use the word Progressive.
You see it on campaign brochures and yard signs.
I live in Massachusetts.
Use of the word is to let potential voters they are extreme left wingers.
Scratch a liberal and he bleeds swastikas.
Probably better to use that quiz that results in someone’s political views mapping them to some area of a quadrant.
“What is the meaning of this cold winter?”
It’s global warming in action! /s;)
As President Eisenhower once said in a speech, “growing up in Abilene, Kansas, to talk about a liberal
was like talking about the town drunk”.
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