Americans are more conservative than they have been in decades

Washington Post ^ | 9/30/13 | Larry Bartels

[Art in Idaho]

Bears repeating, especially with the young folks:

"Talk issues, not parties."

Some get defensive right away if you bring up dem, republican, conservative, or liberal.

[x]

RE: Americans are more conservative than they have been in decades

If this were true, how come Obama is president?

1) Obama got elected the first time when the country was trending liberal. Remember how unpopular Bush was in 2008?

2) "National mood" is a pretty fuzzy thing. You can't really count on these vague "moods" to get much done. Like the article says:

The ups and downs in Stimson’s measure over the past 60 years suggest that partisan turnover in presidential elections is more often a cause of opinion change than a consequence of opinion change. The marked conservative shift under Democrat Barack Obama is by no means unusual; the country also moved sharply to the right under Bill Clinton (before the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994) and Jimmy Carter. Conversely, public opinion moved sharply to the left under Republican presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan. Indeed, from the standpoint of public opinion, the “Reagan era” had already passed its high water mark by the time its namesake was inaugurated.

As Christopher Wlezien ... nicely put it, the public tends to act as a “thermostat,” shifting to the left when the political climate in Washington shifts to the right and to the right when policy shifts to the left. In the past four years, the thermostat has been trending significantly rightward.

So basically, the country's vague "mood" goes against the ideas or positions of whoever is in the White House at the time, but it's not always strongly directed at the president himself, so presidents can still get reelected in spite of a trend against their positions.

3) A lot of people out there who have become more "conservative" in their views still don't trust or like Republicans. The particular questions and the percentages would be interesting on this, but my guess is that you have people who are well to do and socially liberal who've gotten more concerned about government spending and screw-ups lately even though they'd never vote for a Republican because of social issues, and people who are socially conservative but think the Republicans are the party of the rich and would never vote for them. Those two groups can be pretty large or grow bigger without it helping Republicans or "movement conservatives" very much.

[Reagan is King]

Good news if we had a conservative party to vote for. It’s Dem or Dem Lite right now. Dem’s are so bad that I vote against them every time all the way down to dogcatcher but some conservatives aren’t as motivated as I am and stay home.

[1010RD]

Nonsense and spreading that lie simply helps the horribly destructive progressive movement.

The GOP contains many Reaganesque members. The House is the most conservative it has been in two generations. Staying home simply concedes to the victor a vote that may have changed history.

Remember that even Reagan had to deal with the GOPe. He ran with Bush. Given that we know their strategy and their tactics can we engage them, use them to win victories both small and large, and move America back toward her Constitutional roots?

I believe we can. We’re smart enough. We need to persevere and operate in the political reality we face. You fight with the Army you have.

[redpoll]

>>>Romney lost the middle class last time out. We have to win them by not frightening them.<<<

Well, you see the target clearly enough, but you’re making a lot of assumptions about that “frightening” stuff.

The middle class is manipulated daily by the unceasing leftist propaganda from the media, including Hollywood, much of the Internet, advertising, television, newspapers, magazines, cable, the whole ball of wax. Combine that with the leftist propaganda from academia, as well as those who use the machinery of the state for propagandistic purposes, and you have the perfect storm for creating fear by people who are experts in manipulating emotions, organizing political movements, and rationalizing any behavior that creates a bigger government and greater control over the population.

What I’m saying is that the messages which frighten people aren’t coming from the conservatives. Those frightening messages are at the core of leftist politics. Lenin called it “agitation propaganda,” which are messages and ideas promoted simply to make people angry or annoyed, at which point the state steps in to make things better. Sandra Fluke’s request for free birth control, and the unending lies about Republicans taking away contraceptives, are good examples of that. The American model is called “community organizing.” Or as Rahm Emmanuel once said, you shouldn’t let a crisis go to waste.

I would agree with this article. I teach high school, and, yes, the opinions of the kids in my classroom as unformed and uninformed, but most of them find Obama a joke and liberals to be old hypocrite hippies. They hear from grandparents (and me) about life when people were living in a liberty-based society, and they want it in their own lives. Certainly the modern version of liberty looks far different than it did for us in 1965 - for starters, they’re seeing a vision of liberty as seen through the debris of decades of leftist rule. You might be pleased to know that a fairly substantial group of those kids are devoted Christians, and they’re not being subtle or shy about their faith.

I would think that someone alive in 1961 would have little understanding of the culture of 1971. The hubris of the Gramscii-besotted cultural elite is ripe for a swift kick in the ass. Of course, being a teacher, I’m right in that line of fire, but it would be worth it to have a ringside seat.

[Tonytitan]

So how come so many states are making homo-sexual marriages legal?

How many are doing it as the result of a public referendum voted upon by the electorate and how many did it by judicial fiat combined with the money grubbing legislators signing onto the deal.

[RipSawyer]

It is so difficult to believe that I don’t believe it. I don’t have time right now to try to determine the methodology on this one but this kind of report seems generally to be based on how people self-identify. I consider that very unreliable, having heard so many statements such as, “I am VERY conservative but I think health care should be provided by the government for free.”

As I have often told my wife, (who is named Judy) I could call myself a Golden Eagle but my six foot four inch, two hundred and fifty pound frame ain’t agonna fly any way but straight down into the ground. What the who, we have had “reporters” try to make the case that Barry Soetoro is a “conservative”.

[Texas Eagle]

Agreed. We win on the ground, but lose it to the GOPe.

Patience, Grasshopper, patience.

We are growing at the local level by leaps and bounds.

Idiot RINOs haven't figured that out yet. But they will.

[Katya]

I’m sorry to hear she passed, good for her to have had an open mind! At least my parents votes cancel themselves out... as my dad votes straight republican :D

[Wilhelm Tell]

Obviously, since the people are becoming more conservative, the winning strategy for Republicans is to only support liberal Repubs who thumb their noses at conservatives and who go along with the Democrats 98% of the time./sarcasm

[CatOwner]

Hard to believe that the conservative percentage went down that much during the Reagan years.

[1010RD]

You might enjoy this podcast:

Morris Fiorina on Polarization, Stability, and the State of the Electorate

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2013/07/morris_fiorina.html