Why America Keeps Getting More Conservative

[xchrom]

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/politics/2012/02/why-america-keeps-getting-more-conservative/1162/

Even with the president’s approval rating showing signs of life and the Republicans busily bashing themselves over the head — “one is a practicing polygamist and he’s not even the Mormon,” retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor recently quipped about her party’s two frontrunners — America continues to track right, according to polling data released by the Gallup Organization last week.

Americans at this political moment are significantly more likely to identify as conservative than as liberal: conservatives outnumber liberals by nearly two to one. Forty percent identify as conservative, 36 percent as moderate, and 21 percent liberal.



The map above charts the ideological divide across America’s states. There are four states where conservatives make up more than half the population: Mississippi, Utah, Wyoming, and Alabama. Conservatives make up more than 40 percent in 20 more states. Liberals now outnumber conservatives in just one state, Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia.

Last March, I took an in-depth look at the factors that might be associated with America’s increasingly conservative ideological cast; I update that analysis here with Gallup’s year-end data. The ongoing economic crisis only appears to have deepened conservatism's hold. America is becoming a more conservative nation, at least at the state level.

My MPI colleague Charlotta Mellander ran a series of correlations on a range of political, economic, demographic and other factors. The associations we found, I hasten to add, are just that — associations; correlation does not show causation. Nonetheless, they reflect the deep cleavages of income, education, and class that divide America.

[rfranklin]

1. This is only showing how people adopt labels that they feel comfortable with...

After 40 or 50 years of having the term "liberal" smeared and demonized, it is not surprisingly that many shy away from it. As has often been pointed out here, however, liberal viewpoints are arguably much more popular in the USA than the right wing would have you believe.

I found this by using Google--

Never mind that this poll only asks people how they self-identify and doesn’t ask for their actual opinions on a single actual issue—because more people are comfortable calling themselves “conservative” than calling themselves “liberal” (I wonder if decades of right-wing talk-radio might have anything to do with that?) they consider it an irrefutable fact that most Americans are not liberal, and therefore that most Americans are opposed to things like government-run health insurance, strict Wall Street reform, and raising taxes on the rich. Most Americans, because they call themselves “conservative” must therefore believe that fixing the deficit is the most pressing issue of our time, and that this must be done through spending cuts and under no circumstances with increased taxes for the rich.

When you go issue-by-issue, the majority of Americans support the more liberal position on almost every single question ranging from foreign policy to gay rights, as this superb study by Media Matters proves.

http://open.salon.com/blog/kemstone/2011/01/08/memo_to_bill_daley_most_americans_are_liberal

[xchrom]

3. I thought the article was interesting because

Of the contradictions.

[Scuba]

2. Maybe 40% self-identify as "conservative" but if you start asking them policy questions...

... they're actually pretty liberal. However, the word "liberal' has been smeared by the right for three decades and many don't wish to be associated with the word.

Recently there was a post citing a study that showed "progressive" was the most popular term.

[CAPHAVOC]

4. Wait!

Conservatives...How can they complain about the welfare state as they drive people in to it?

[JoePhilly]

5. Take the dark green, turn it red, take the rest, turn them blue (except AK) ...

and you'll have the outcome of the 2012 election.

[mazzarro]

6. Is this the true political division of the voters?

I had thought that liberals and conservatives are evenly matched in their size of voters and that independents have an edge on both? This article seem to have all this reserved in favor the rePIGs.

[Doctor_J]

7. This analysis is stupid

It is because of the far right media monopoly and complete saturation of the airwaves with lies, hate, and propaganda. Period. All we have to do to take this country back is start dispensing summary justice on the purveyors of hate and lies, and things will turn around post haste.

[ellenfl]

8. they're just trying to convince us. it's gallup. eom

[U of M Dem]

9. It's more simple than that...

Poor education leads to political conservatism.

http://createperfection.hubpages.com/hub/University-Study-Shows-People-With-Lower-IQs-Are-Conservatives
and
http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2010/03/02/Higher-IQ-linked-to-liberalism-atheism/UPI-68381267513202/#ixzz1MRF8B44p

Check this out...



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