middle-rite nation
Lately annoyed by all the (conservative & mainstream) pundits asserting confidently that the US is “a center-right nation”. What? When did that happen? As long as I’ve watched these things, people’s positions on issues trend ever leftward — although the Right has successfully managed terminology such that feminists hate the “f-word”, liberals hate the “l-word”, socialists hate the “s-word”. (Anarchists and atheists are apparently so lost to reason that they can’t even be brought to disavow those terms.)
And happily David Sirota noted the same thing:
[Conservatives] contend that no matter how big progressives may win on election day, this is nonetheless a center-right nation. Indeed, a LexisNexis search shows this poll-tested term — “center-right nation” — is lately among the Punditburo’s most ubiquitous Orwellian buzzwords. From a Newsweek cover story by conservative dittohead Jon Meacham to a Wall Street Journal screed by former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan to a Politico.com diatribe by former Rudy Giuliani aide John Avlon, the “center-right nation” phrase is being parroted with the propagandistic discipline of Cuba’s Ministry of Information.
The proof of this center-right nation? Republicans cite polls showing more Americans call themselves conservative than liberal. While that data point certainly measures brand name, those same surveys undermine the right’s larger argument because they show majorities support progressive positions on most economic issues.
Sirota, Mandate ’08: Reagan vs. FDR, SF Chronicle, 2008/10/31.
Yes, not only are these pundits wrong, but indeed, there is a concerted push this year on this term — the latest conservative talking point. Has anyone tracked the origin and dispersal of these phrases? I’d really like to know.
eta 2008/11/09: Lots of other folks have noticed this as well. See, e.g., Frank Rich 11/9, ….
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I honestly expect that social conservatism will die out as a political force in the USA within the next two or three decades, but economic conservatism will always be present.
Comparing leftness or rightness between nations is fiddly because of these multiple spectra of politics – issues that are irrelevant or ‘decided’ in some nations might be heartfelt left-vs-right battles in others. Doesn’t always make sense to compare.
Comparing leftness or rightness between nations is fiddly because of these multiple spectra of politics
Particularly with the US, where the terms have become so debased they are really meaningless. When you hear conservatives decrying “leftist fascism” or “eco-Nazi” etc. you know that something is really screwy with their use of language.
Optimistic — I *hope* you’re right about social conservatism as a political force.
While I think their logic (let alone their motives) are highly suspect, there is something to the idea that much of the political discussion has moved to the right in the last 40-some years. Like, I don’t think it’s a particular stretch to say that Richard Nixon, in today’s context would probably be thought of as being “really liberal,” which is both a) reasonably true and b) freakin’ scary. If anything, I’d read this as an indictment of the Democratic party for being too loyal of an opposition?
I agree with Thene, that social conservative is on a downward trend. I think John McCain (Palin not withstanding) represents a a move away from social conservatism–at least within the republican party–and it might take a while but it’ll happen…
definitely, the discourse has moved to the right. thus, commentators of all stripes can say with a straight face that “the media” is liberal, that harry reid & nancy pelosi are “far left” (of the radical reactionary right that’s dominated the Republican Party), and so on.
but allow that changes how we label our politics, the underlying politics continue to move in the direction of social liberalism and economic populism.
actually, now that i think of it, it’s a rather pleasing irony that the punditocracy and republicans — who so regularly decry arrogance & insularity & out-of-touchness in academia, the media, the political class, and everyone who is not them — turn out to, themselves, be so out-of-touch with popular opinion. (See also The Progressive Majority: Why a Conservative America Is a Myth, Media Matters, June 2007.)