The Washington Post: Steve Rosenthal: ‘American Politics Are Moving Left’

Source:The Washington Post- U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (Democrat, Massachusetts) Hey, Liz, if Democratic Socialist is good enough for Bernie Sanders, why not you as well?

“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.”

Source:The Washington Post 

“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.”

Source:The Young Turks- Liberal and Conservative are actually not that different.

From The Young Turks

To talk about liberal, progressive, conservative, socialist, or whatever political label you are talking about, it sure as hell hopes to know what you mean when you are talking about that label. What does that label mean to you. The same thing when you are talking about movies and you are talking about great movies. Well, what do you mean by great movie. What is a great movie to you.

When I think of liberal, I think of someone who believes in liberal democracy. I know that sounds crazy, but when I think of social democrat or democratic socialist, I think of someone who believes in social democracy, not communism. When I think of conservative, I think of someone who is cautious and believes in conserving. Not someone who who is antiestablishment and wants to blow up the establishment of the Republican Party and replace it with a theocratic, nationalistic, authoritarian party. But someone who wants to conserve the American federal republic, the U.S. Constitutional, and our liberal democracy.

Since labels like Socialist have been thrown around in America and lumped in with Communist, that everyone who isn’t on the Far-Left in America, hates, or at least hates communism, people who would be called Social Democrats or just plain Socialists everywhere else, at least in the free democratic world, go by other political labels in America, like liberal or progressive. Even in Europe, Liberals are considered center-right, nor center-left, or left-wing, like the mainstream media considers them in America.

Yes, I believe America is more liberal today, then it even was 10-20 years ago. But not in the stereotypical, mainstream media, pop culture sense of what a Liberal is supposed to be and what they Liberals are supposed to believe in. But liberal in classical (if not real) sense as people who believe in freedom, both personal and economic, as well people who believe in civil liberties and freedom of choice, as well as equality of opportunity and equal justice.

I also think America is more left today, in the social democratic sense, with a lot of Millennial’s who think socialism is cool, similar to how the young Boomers thought socialism was cool in the 1960s and 70s. Politicians like Senator Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, as well as other leftist Democrats, seem to play very well with young people today.

But again, we need to separate liberal from leftist, because they’re not the same things, never have been, and never will be. Real Liberals (or Classical Liberals, if you prefer) look very conservative, at least compared with leftists (democratic or otherwise) ideologically. 

You can also see this post at FRS FreeState, on WordPress.