A Center-Right Nation?
The most recent Ricochet Podcast made mention of something I've heard several times over the years that, while maintaining verisimilitude (...always wanted to use that word...), is probably misleading or, perhaps, simply incorrect.
It's been a couple days since I listened, so I don't remember who mentioned it, but it was regarding how the United States of America is, after all, a "center-right nation," and that while elections won by socialists may occur from time to time, eventually the American public reverts to mean and votes in a slightly-conservative president and/or bunch of people to lead them. The podcast also mentioned what I'm calling (for reasons listed below) the "40/20 fallacy" : that 40% of the American public lists themselves as conservative while only 20% consider themselves liberal. This, naturally, would lead to the remaining 40% listed as either "centrist," or, more often than not, as the "don't know/don't care/ huh?" constituency that, for some reason, are still allowed to vote.
The problem I have, and have had, with this is that I believe this assumption of a center-right plurality is incorrect. I seem to remember Bernard Goldberg mentioning in his book Bias that those in the media who were nothing short of radical leftists would consider themselves middle of the road. I believe this permeates to the population at large; we conservatives know we're conservative, while the liberals think they're moderates.
This is proven to me anecdotally anytime I get into it on Facebook or email with my friends from home in Massachusetts or from college in New Hampshire, most of whom still live in Massachusetts, New Hampshire or Vermont (I live in Packerland, now); if we were to draft out an itemized list of subjects (abortion, illegal immigration, gay marriage, constitutional items, etc), in each and every case they follow the liberal line. However, in each & every case they refuse to believe that they are liberal, using as their basis the reasoning that they're "not as liberal as some I know."
The problem is that they are so insular that they only know liberals; they may not be the most leftist among them, but then the sample size is rather skewed. I keep telling one of my buddies that, for Massachusetts, he may be a moderate, but for the country's population as a whole, not so much. He refuses to hear it.
In any case, returning to my thesis: it's not surprising to me that only 20% of Americans asked label themselves liberal; I'm willing to bet another 10%-15% of what we (and any objective reviewer) would consider liberal list themselves as moderate, bringing the true figures closer to 40% conservative/30-35% liberal. This doesn't quite mean ours is a "center-right" nation.
I believe the recent elections bear this out: per the numbers I was able to find on the past few presidential elections, the popular vote has yielded these figures (raw data found here; I cannot stipulate their accuracy):
| Popular Vote | Percentage of | ||
| Year | Candidate | Count | Popular Vote |
| 2008 | Obama | 66,862,039.00 | 53.41% |
| McCain | 58,319,442.00 | 46.59% | |
| 2004 | George W Bush | 62,028,285.00 | 51.24% |
| John Kerry | 59,028,109.00 | 48.76% | |
| 2000 | George W Bush | 50,456,002.00 | 48.36% |
| Al Gore | 50,999,897.00 | 48.88% | |
| Ralph Nader | 2,882,955.00 | 2.76% | |
| 1996 | Bill Clinton | 47,402,357.00 | 50.06% |
| Bob Dole | 39,198,755.00 | 41.40% | |
| H Ross Perot | 8,085,402.00 | 8.54% | |
| 1992 | Bill Clinton | 44,909,899.00 | 43.28% |
| George H W Bush | 39,104,545.00 | 37.69% | |
| H Ross Perot | 19,742,267.00 | 19.03% | |
| 1988 | George H W Bush | 48,886,097.00 | 53.90% |
| Michael S Dukakis | 41,809,074.00 | 46.10% |
Obviously, presidential elections are won based on the votes cast by the Electoral College (cf: 2000), however, a "Center Right" nation? Were that it were so...
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Comments:
Oct '10
Re: A Center-Right Nation?
Many people use moderate and centrist as a synonym for reasonable. Therefore--the thinking goes--the further you stray from the moderate/centrist position, the more unreasonable your opinion.
Mar '12
Re: A Center-Right Nation?
Big,
Good eye! I was reading those vote totals and managed to figure out how right (no pun intended) you are. If you want to know what someone believes, watch what they do. Based on those vote totals, we aren't a terribly center-right country. That sounds like the suggestion that black Americans are actually conservative in their leanings, but not in their voting. But, if you want to know what someone believes, watch what they do. Black Americans vote liberal.
I don't believe that there are many if any moderates anymore.
I found I was no longer moderate or Democrat when I re-registered as a Republican before voting for Reagan. When I found the Republicans no longer conservative, I re-registered as an independent.
New party anyone? Conservative party? Start defining terms here?
Edited on June 18, 2012 at 10:21pmNov '10
Re: A Center-Right Nation?
I've long worried that if a third party were to ever gain a significant foothold, it won't be the Greens (basically the Democrats but worse) or the Libertarians (wrong side of everything,) but some sort of Christian Socialist party, a party that will protect collective bargaining and the unborn. One that will preserve both traditional marriage and the welfare state.
When we say we live in a center right nation it usually means two things: a) We tend to be more religious/socially conservative than Europe and b) we have an unusual aversion to the word "socialism," even though people will occasionally support policies and candidates that the rest of the world would recognize as socialist. Reading François Hollande's election platform will present very little that Barack Obama or Nancy Pelosi would disagree with, but the fact that the latter two are afraid to self-identify as socialists probably does say something hopeful about American culture.
Mar '12
Re: A Center-Right Nation?
Umbra,
I could easily be in a third party where the unborn and heterosexual marriage are protected while shrinking the welfare state and making sure that the Marines (and their partners who protect us) have sufficient money to develop the new weapons we'll need to protect ourselves.
I am not much on collective bargaining however, nor does AFSME have any appeal to me.
Maybe a third party without collective bargaining and AFSME? That might be workable.
Mar '11
Re: A Center-Right Nation?
Amy Schley
The best way to make sure the government doesn't pay for things you like but I don't and vice versa is the get the government out of paying for so many different things. That's a conservative message; we ought to be making it.
Yes in theory, but experience suggests that most people like receiving their government spending more than they dislike paying for someone else's - this is especially true when a third person (such as Mr. Evil Corporation and Mr. Selfish Richguy) are picking up a lot of the tab.
Perhaps more than questionnaire responses or votes, the most honest gauge of how right/left we are in America is the size of government over time, which suggests we have drifted pretty far to the left.
Jun '12
Re: A Center-Right Nation?
In states like Illinois, Pennsylvania, and others, where voter fraud is rampant, this skews the results between true liberals (and the personally conservative above) vs. the Center-Right majority. If Wisconsin and Minnesota can also eliminate their relatively lesser vote fraud, the result would be more like Indiana (with Voter ID), where the Democrats have to be more conservative.
Mar '12
Re: A Center-Right Nation?
Viator cites election results from the 80s to contrast with the post's more recent results. Ron Brownstein has a piece explaining the differences, and how difficult the political terrain has become for conservatives since then. http://nationaljournal.com/columns/political-connections/just-like-the-gipper-20120614
He compares the Reagan 1984 landslide against Mondale (in which Reagan won 49 states) to the 2008 Obama victory:
"Mondale in 1984 carried only 40.6 percent of the popular vote. But if college-educated whites, noncollege whites, and minorities all voted as they did in 1984, but were present in the same proportions they represented in 2008, Mondale would have taken nearly 48 percent of the vote. Conversely, if those three groups voted as they did in 2008, but were present in their 1984 proportions, Obama would have lost convincingly."
The enormous increase in minority voters (who consistently vote 80% Democratic) and the huge relative increase of women with college degrees (who favor Obama 52%) combine to virtually require GOP duplicate Reagan 's 1984 2/3 majority among white men with and without college degrees. The Left's dominance in education and bipartisan immigration policies have politically marginalized conservatism.
Jul '10
Re: A Center-Right Nation?
BigDumbJerk:
Are you sure you aren't making the same mistake as your MA pal on a bigger scale?
A nation-state should be judged relative to other nation-states, no? Center-right seems correct to me comparing the U.S. with other first-world countries. A written, difficult to amend, Constitution is drastically conservative in that context.
Dec '10
Re: A Center-Right Nation?
Palaeologus: BigDumbJerk:
Are you sure you aren't making the same mistake as your MA pal on a bigger scale?
A fair point, and one I'm surprised hadn't been (that I've seen) brought up before now.
However, at the risk of sounding too sure of myself ("...that's how they all act...except for me..."), I'd like to think not: I grew up in Massachusetts during the latter Dukakis term, went to college in New Hampshire, went back to Boston for my early career, moved to Maine for a time & now live in Wisconsin; with the possible exception at times of New Hampshire, none of these are bastions of conservatism (and New Hampshire, when it is, tends to be fiscally, not socially, conservative). Because of that, some of my best friends are liberal...
On a more serious note, it's difficult to live, school & work in those states and not be in constant contact with "the other side," as it were. I would contend that in a purple state, while it is possible for a liberal to associate with only liberals, it is nearly impossible for a conservative to only interact with conservatives.
Dec '10
Re: A Center-Right Nation?
Terribly sorry, old bean; it's been rattling around in my head for a bit, too. I'm pretty much a blind squirrel who found a nut, however, and so yield the floor to you for other insights.
Oct '10
Re: A Center-Right Nation?
I think you're shifting "center-right" too far to the right. The elections of the past thirty years were, by and large, won by parties that shifted to the center-right; Obama is the only exception, and once voters realized the Dems were no longer the party of Clinton centrism they swung back to our side.