America's Progressive Majority (TomPaine.com)

[marmar]

America's Progressive Majority
Eric Lotke
June 13, 2007


Eric Lotke is research director for the Campaign for America’s Future.

The façade of conservative political dominance is crumbling. The disintegration runs deeper than public disaffection with the Bush administration’s catastrophic failures and is more fundamental than the political realignment of the 2006 election. The notion of America as a “conservative nation” was always more fiction than fact, but the nation’s rejection of President Bush’s brand of “you’re-on-your-own” conservatism and wedge-issue divisiveness is so broad that today the façade is simply unsustainable.

An exhaustive review released today of decades of public opinion research by the Campaign for America’s Future, using the most reputable, nonpartisan sources, leads to a simple conclusion: America is more progressive than people think—or, more precisely, than the conventional wisdom would lead them to believe. From the economy to social issues, terrorism to trade, Americans want politicians who recognize that we’re all in it together.

Start with the economy. Polling by the Pew Research Center shows 84 percent support to increase the minimum wage. Gallup shows that more Americans sympathize with unions than with companies in labor disputes (52 to 34 percent). NBC News and the Wall Street Journal polls indicate that nearly twice as many people think the U.S. is more hurt than helped by the global economy (48 to 25 percent). Other polls open the door to increased labor and environmental standards as part of the solution.

For people caught on the wrong side of the economy, research by the University of Michigan National Election Studies reveals that 69 percent of Americans believe government should care for those who can’t care for themselves. Twice as many people want “government to provide many more services even if it means an increase in spending" (43 percent) as want government to provide fewer services “in order to reduce spending” (20 percent). Majorities say we need a bigger government “because the country’s problems are bigger” (59 percent) and a “strong government to handle complex problems” (67 percent).

These Americans are challenging a central plank of modern conservatism. They don’t always want government to leave them alone. They want government to help hold us together.

On social issues too, Americans are more progressive than they are typically credited. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/06/13/americas_progressive_majority.php

[Peace Patriot]

1. I've been saying this for THREE YEARS!

I didn't do any thorough study like this, just scanned different polls now and then, starting in Feb. 03, before the invasion of Iraq. 56% of the American people opposed to it! (--and it held true in all polls). WTF? And we were rushing to war? Another one that caught my eye: 63% opposed to torture "under any circumstances" (May '04). And many more, on many issues, many with 70% to 80% opposition to Bush policy.

It's one of the collateral evidences of a stolen 2004 election. Yet I kept coming across a persistent attitude, here at DU and at other leftist blogs, that we on the left are in the minority and have to argue all these issues out with wingers.

Boy, have these corporate news monopolies done a number on us! They never intended to convince us that their unjust, illegal, heinous, UNNECESSARY war was right. They were out to convince us that most OTHER Americans had gone nuts, and that we were isolated and alone in our minority peace-minded, "liberal," '60s hippie caves.

Many obsessed with countering Rove's latest "talking points," and few focusing on the practical, strategic matter of POWER. We don't have to convince anybody of anything. We are spending too much time in useless arguments with the war profiteering corporate news monopolies. Given that the great progressive American majority has held up--and held up strongly--through relentless, 24/7 fascist propaganda and warmongering, the question is not, who can win these stupid arguments? The question is, what is our power? Our major power, as a sovereign people, is exercised by voting! What have they done with our votes?

That is the question. And when you look into it, you find out. Lordy, lordy, have they done a number on us!

So all you folks out there who feel powerless and demoralized and disenfranchised, know this: The American people are not "sheeple," as snotty leftists sometimes call them. They are not uninformed. They are not rightwing 'christian' nuts. They are not rightwing at all--they are leftwing! Most of them did not buy Bush's bullshit, even way back in Feb. '03. They don't need to be convinced about what a good and decent society, or what a good government, is. But they ARE mystified. Why isn't our democracy working? Why is it that everybody around me--family, friends, co-workers--and everybody I meet, are liberals, or at least have common sense, reasonable views, but all you see/hear on TV/radio and in the newspapers is rightwing garbage?

They don't know. It's the best kept secret of all. Their votes are being systematically stolen, now with entrenched electronic voting systems, run on "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations, with the complicity of the war supporters in the Democratic Party leadership (and THAT's why you don't know about!).