While I was puttering around in the GSS data for my previous post, I happened to take a look at self-reported political ideology. In particular, I looked at how many Republicans described themselves as conservative and how many Democrats described themselves as liberal. Here it is:
Republicans have been growing steadily more conservative for 50 years. During this time, the share saying they are conservative has grown by 29 points, from 44% to 73%.
Democrats, by contrast, had a long stretch of time from 1990-2015 when nothing much changed. But starting in 2016 their liberalism shot up. Over the entire 50 year period, the share saying they are liberal has grown by 27 points, from 34% to 61%.
Put another way: since 2016 Democrats have moved substantially leftward while Republicans have barely moved at all.
Put in yet another way: over the entire 50-year period, both parties have moved equally in opposite directions. But Republicans did it first.
Probably not it but by 2016 the ACA was having a noticeable impact on the uninsured rates in the US, that success might push some 'soft liberals' toward accepting more liberal policies.
Surely it's the arrival of Trump more than a new program what was passed into law six years previous to that.
How do you reach from "describe themselves as Liberals" to "moved leftwards"?
Looks more like the word "Liberal" became more popular for Democrats.
Yeah, I remember the the 90's where folks were afraid to claim to be liberals because the right wing noise machine had made it toxic. I think folks finally got over that.
Yeah, I remember the the 90's where folks were afraid to claim to be liberals because the right wing noise machine had made it toxic. I think folks finally got over that.
A lot of people on the left started calling themselves "progressive" because of the attacks on the term "liberal" and it has largely stuck. I've never been a huge fan of the contemporary use of the P word personally, because I associate it with weak, postmodern rebranding. (I'm fine if folks want to use that word to describe Robert LaFollette or Teddy Rossevelt!).
But yes, at this point, perhaps quite a few folks on the left have taken to re-embracing the term "liberal"? It would be nice if that were the case.
Right around the same time that "liberal" started to lose the stigma that Republicans had attached to it, it started to pick up stigma from the farther left (who I would say were also liberals, just further along the spectrum). Great job guys.
Indeed. I assumed it was right-wing media in the '90s that made "liberal" a killing curse. As if Phil Ochs hadn't done so in the '60s.
Maybe more Democrats are crying about Medgar Evers.
The 1988 Bush campaign also spent a lot time making liberal into the smear it became for awhile.
for those who are unfamiliar with Phil Ochs:
Draft Dodger Rag (anti-Vietnam War)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFFOUkipI4U
...different times....
That's right. This data shows a change in self-identification and nothing about ideological movement.
KD: ...since 2016 Democrats have moved substantially leftward while Republicans have barely moved at all...
That's ludicrous. Republicans have abandoned all pretense that we live in a pluralistic, democratic society while criminalizing women's rights on one hand and falling in line behind a failed coup-leading madman whose closest allies are dictators on the other. Any half-sane Republican (Mitt Romney, the latest) has headed for the exit.
But it is true they didn't move move left or right. They moved down.
+1
You don't understand either.
I misread the comment above. You apparently understood better than I.
1, That's not in the data. (The chart, if anything, shows them moving up.)
2. A few things Democrats have done since 2016:
--fought the most radical, anti-democratic party in modern US history, and DEFEATED them, saving among other things American democracy
--supported our ally Ukraine against a belligerent Russia, and strengthened NATO
--made big investments in infrastructure, renewable energy, chips technology, etc., ensuring US economic leadership for decades to come
--withdrew the US from a forever war in Afghanistan
--returned stability to institutions of government after T's dangerous four-year term
It's a neat trick conservatives play to convince themselves that the Democratic Party is just as wacko as the GOP. (Media does the same both-sides crap every day.) But Democrats elected Joe Biden, not Mao and not even Bernie Sanders. The party is as regular and mainstream as you can get in our time. (And if you say "but ... but ... but defund the police," you're not being serious.) If not for the Democratic Party, you wouldn't recognize this place anymore. The world would be headed for a new Dark Ages, and we're still not out of the woods yet. Democrats are working to preserve our heritage and our freedoms, and in Lincoln's words, "the last best hope of earth." I understand that you don't understand that. You're welcome anyway.
"... Democrats are working to preserve our heritage and our freedoms ..."
In other words, Democrats are the conservatives.
As a political label, "conservative" generally means something else.
But as an adjective to describe supporting traditional American freedoms and ideals, sure.
"1, That's not in the data. (The chart, if anything, shows them moving up.)"
You seem to completely misunderstood what I wrote:
1) I was replying to a comment about Republican, and I was refering to them when I wrote "they", not Democrats.
2) The left", "right" and "up" were not references to the graph, but to "political space", where "down" means something like "less moral".
I tend to quote the specific text I respond to, to avoid these misundertsandings, But I missed this time.
The other two reponses suggest they read it correctly, so I guess 2 out of 3 ain't bad.
I clearly misread your reference to "they." My bad.
Objection withdrawn. Sorry to go off.
The Republicans are certainly no longer conservatives but radicals. They are not trying to conserve anything, but to remake society.
In 1860 it was conservative to defend slavery, moderate to oppose extending it to the territories, and radical to want to eliminate it.
Today it is conservative to protect minorities' civil rights (Dem position), moderate to oppose affirmative action (courts' position), and radical to oppose the teaching of real history and support Nazis marching through Florida (GOP position).
I would dispute "radical". The Republicans these days generally are reactionaries; they seek to return society to some (usually imaginary) version of "the good old days". Make America Great Again is an explicitly reactionary slogan; it directs returning America to a prior state when it was great.
Radicals are generally progressives in a hurry. The extreme radical position is that we can't improve the existing society by evolutionary means. We need a revolution that will completely destroy the existing order and build a better one on the ashes.
I agree. Similarly, as the Republican Party has moved from ultraconservative to bat-guano crazy right wing, more and more of them are describing themselves as "conservative", instead of the more accurate "reactionary revanchist" or even "monarchy-worshipping would be fascists." Of course, those choices were probably not offered on the survey.
And don't get me started on the both-siderist "news" media, which operates from the principal that all of this is totally normal, and it's the Democrats who are moving left, while the Good Old Party of Ike has not changed one whit.
"... , more and more of them are describing themselves as "conservative", "
Which is I think that using the word "conservative" to refer to the current Republican (and related institutes) is wrong. They call themselves "conservatives", but they are something else
Yeah this doesn’t say anything about the positions of voters on issues, it just says whether they describe themselves as liberal or conservative, for a long time liberal was a tainted word and people would use alternatives like progressive, it seems that all that has changed is people are comfortable saying they are liberal again
yup. not to mention the fact this is self-reported and liberal, it seems, is undefined to the respondent. to determine if democrats have actually moved in a liberal direction ideologically, you need questions on specific beliefs and policy stances. the jump in liberal identificate since 2016 could just be a reaction to trumpism and a desire to identify as opposed to it and him.
I made the same point above. Limbaugh et al demonized the word "liberal" in the 80s and 90s, and so many on the left cringed at it. It's why folks started using "progressive".
But that stigma is pretty much gone at this point, and people are willing to say they are liberal again. But, really, what policies have Dems really moved left on that the nation hasn't either led the way or followed?
Isn't this more the effect where people say "I'm nonpartisan" or whatever giving that up in the face of ever more clear differences?
Their views are likely unchanged. The value of identifying as liberal (and not one of those crazies) shot up.
Put another way, it got harder to pull that schtick most normal people who don't read politics blogs take comfort in: saying that both sides are the same. It became a time to choose. That's all.
Yes. We are well beyond the "Demlican" and "Republicrat" parties. Anybody who thinks they are "the same" just isn't thinking ... or opening their eyes.
So these are percentages of Democrats or Republicans identifying as either liberal or conservative.
How about absolute numbers? Is it that more of each party are identifying those ways, or are the centrists leaving the parties so the percentages change?
If we judge by who people voted for and what their elected politicians have done, both Republicans and Democrats have moved well to the right economically since 1964. That was when LBJ defeated Goldwater in a landslide - Goldwater was considered practically a lunatic for his extreme views, and so was Reagan, at that time. LBJ got Medicare passed and many other Great Society measures. It was actually thought that the War on Poverty might soon be won.
The Civil Rights Act was also passed, which was a major advance for liberalism, but after the end of legal segregation there was considerable reaction to racial equality. There have continued to be advances in equality, but the resistance continues to be very strong, even dominant. Trump was not elected for economic reasons.
You just can't force political divisions into a single continuum. The two main areas of division are economics and race/religion (culture wars), and you won't understand American politics unless you understand how each of these affects voting. The alliances were completely different in say 1945 from what they are now. As other commenters say, what people call themselves does not really specify their views.
I'm sure you could have broken it down by generations.
If you did, what we'd find is that since Trump and because of him, the youngest generation has moved furthest to the left by larger margins, driven by climate change, abortion, LGBTQ+, and social issues.
That's my theory, anyway.
Can't help thinking, based on the timing, that there is a Trump effect going on some how. Can't say exactly how, although I know he has gotten into the brains of us Dems and shaken things up. For instance, I do think that Dems in the Trump era are more belligerent than ever.
Everybody above is correct. These surveys of self described political affiliation show nothing except that people don’t understand liberal/conservative, left/right. In “Democracy for Realists” Achen and Bartels cite a German survey in which voters couldn’t properly place the Die Linke party on a left/right scale. Despite Die Linke meaning, literally The Left.
I don't think Democrats have gotten more liberal, but that the stigma has largely been removed from the word "liberal" so Democrats are willing to admit to being liberal.
There's really no major policy on which the Dems have moved "left" that the nation hasn't followed along. Even "controversial" things like trans rights are just an extension of liberal support for civil rights for the poor, Blacks, women, immigrants, homosexuals, etc. But on drugs, they're following the nation. On abortion, they're following the nation. On climate change, on international relations, on poverty, on the environment, on infrastructure, on guns, they're following the nation.
Most of the laws being passed against trans rights are reversing policies that are decades old.
It's not like we're new, Or medical care for us is new.
The graph is meaningless without identifying actual issues. The Democratic Party had remained rather consistent on most issues the last twenty years whereas the Republican Party has shifted its views on the role of government and foreign affairs to the point that sometimes it’s hard to ascertain the “conservative” position. E.g., is supporting Ukraine conservative or liberal? I’m sure there are some issues out there but I having a tough time finding any issue where a mainstream liberal has shifted substantially to the left since 2000. There has been some nuanced movement on some matters both to the right and left but I just don’t think liberals have become overall more liberal. The views on abortion, taxes, immigration, civil rights, labor, and the environment remain in the same progressive spectrum.
Left/right labels are meaningless outside the context of what interest is being served. How about associating "up" with service to the the greater good, and "down" with service to an in-group at the expense of an out-group. Then upper-left is progressive, which is more openminded and less skeptical, upper-right is conservative, which is less openminded and more skeptical, "center" is where progressives and conservatives are lead by adult conversations, and "down" is detached from reality - like when you blow up and let it go of a balloon before tying off the air hole.
From that perspective, the Democratic Party isn't destined for sainthood, but the Republican Party has sold its soul to the devil.
"Democrats have gotten a lot more Liberal lately"
No, they haven't. That's a preposterous statement that utterly distorts the reality of our current moment in history.
"But starting in 2016 ... [T]he share [of Democrats] saying they are liberal has grown by 27 points, from 34% to 61%."
I think the best way to make sense out of this would be to rephrase it slightly and say that the Republican/Conservative brand has been too deeply tarnished by Trump, and identifying as "Liberal" sounds like the opposite of identifying as a Trump/Republican/Conservative; hence, what's very likely going on is that Democrats are identifying as anti-Trump (not as "Liberal".) This interpretation is obviously bolstered by the fact that the trend starts in 2016, the precise year when Trump first won the Republican nomination and then the Presidency.
But if and when Liberalism is understood as an emphasis on legal, social, and political equality; a freedom of expression encompassing speech, religion, and ideology; and a belief that compromise (as opposed to revolution) is likely to be an unavoidable aspect of progress in an enormous, diverse, and democratic republic, then Democrats have in fact become less Liberal across the board.
The aspects of Liberalism listed above are obviously not exhaustive, but they do stress points that are relevant at this time. Let's start with the first point: equality. As recently as the Obama years, equality of opportunity was still more or less the Democratic message: "What matters is effort and merit. That's the promise of America." That was Obama in 2015. But this message has been abandoned. The "DEI glossary of terms" provided by California's Community Colleges now declares: "Merit: A concept that at face value appears to be a neutral measure of academic achievement and qualifications; however, merit is embedded in the ideology of Whiteness and upholds race-based structural inequality." After abandoning equality, the Dems have now embraced "equity," and that is the opposite of growing more Liberal. Rather than emphasizing the freedom to chart one's own course in as equal a society as we can create, Democrats now insist on equitable outcomes. A recent story in New York magazine comments that Vice President Harris uses her office and influence to ask questions about and pursue results that reflect equity. Not equality.
Second point: freedom of expression relating to speech, religion, and ideology. I hardly know where to begin. Let's start with one of the most shocking developments of my adult life: the Supreme Court Case known as 303 v. Elenis. Here's what a Supreme Court Justice wrote in their decision on that case: "The First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands." Was that written by a "Liberal" justice? OMG, be serious! This is the 2020s! And Democrats are so done with free speech. No, that statement was written by a Conservative, and three "Liberal" justices somehow managed to vote against those sentiments. How did three Liberal Supreme Court justices manage to vote against the principle of free speech? Certainly some kind of Left Wing echo chamber, and the intense pressure to support "social justice," may have played a role. But it shouldn’t have. It is more or less the job of Supreme Court justices to rise above factional ideologies. And the fact that the Liberal judges failed to do that in this case shakes my own commitment to the Democrat Party to its core. To be blunt: I don’t want any more liberal judges on the court if they’re going to be voting against free speech. They need to get their damn act together.
Third point: compromise for the sake of gradual but steady progress. Here is how the Niskanen Center summarizes Ruy Teixeira's take on the situation (Teixeira being the one who once predicted an "Emerging Democratic Majority" but now admits that the Dems utterly blew apart that historic opportunity): "[T]he Democrats, as they tilted toward college-educated voters, were repelling their working-class supporters by embracing cultural leftism and racial identitarianism as well as writing off all of Trump’s working-class voters as irredeemable racists and xenophobes." Indeed. You can also go to once Liberal sites like the DailyKos to read one casual dismissal after another of anywhere from 50 to 75 million Americans as troglodyte racists who must be contained from interaction with our proper (or Leftist) society. Doesn't exactly reek of compromise, does it?
What has actually happened since 2016 is that Republicans did indeed descend into madness. But Democrats did not grow more "Liberal" in response. No, they simply descended into a madness of their own. Thanks Trump.
What? Calling yourself "liberal" doesn't mean you've moved to the left. It just means you've changed the word you call yourself.
In this case, it's probably at least partly because the word itself has shifted in its meaning. Thirty years ago it just meant "the opposite of conservative", but nowadays it's also widely used to mean center-left. Actual leftists use "liberal" as a dirty word just about as much as conservatives do.
And the rest of the reason is that, unlike thirty years ago when every Democratic politician was terrified of the word because of McGovern losing in 1972, it just doesn't have that much of a sting anymore. It's been a long time, we're pretty much over it now, so people who believe basically the same things as they ever did (pro-choice, civil rights, tax the rich, etc) are no longer trying to come up with euphemisms.
I'd love it if they actually *did* move to the left, but changes in terminology are not evidence of this.
What? Calling yourself "liberal" doesn't mean you've moved to the left. It just means you've changed the word you call yourself.
It may mean one has moved to the left, ideologically. Or, it may indeed mean one has decided to use a new self-descriptive. Or both. There's probably some of all three in these poll results.
At one time, the Trumpublicans said things that were at least marginally sensible, and this served to keep a lot of people from wholesale acceptance of more liberal positions.
But no more.
I feel like this chart would be more useful if you inverted one or the other of these values to show the widening gap.
Okay, I'm a political scientist who literally studies this stuff, so I should pull up more actual data, but, I'm a lazy political scientist. But, the short version is Democrats were afraid to *identify* as liberal for a generation (remember the dreaded "L word") and that finally changed. Yes, as is well documented, Democrats have definitely moved left-- especially on race and immigration-- but simply identifying as "liberal" I don't think actually means all that much.