Date: Thu, 27 May 2004 13:18:54 -0400 Message-ID: <673030F0EB746B4684294196207763DB33F045 at cwp-m1.liunet.edu> From: "Louis Kontos" <Louis.Kontos at liu.edu> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
this is an interesting analysis but you make a number of problematic assumptions. First, you assume that presidential candidates present their agendas in a fairly accurate way and that people have a fairly accurate view of those policies. This would mean that propaganda is not very effective. Second, you assume that people are ideological in a straightforward sense, i.e., that conservative people vote for conservative candidates. But when self-professed liberals and conservatives are asked to define and explain their beliefs, they are, for the most part, all over the map. Only ideological 'extremists' appear ideologically consistent. Third, you assume that the Nation and other such publications are not as popular as Fox TV because they are left-leaning, rather than analytical versus sensational. I would also add that consistently, since the 1930s, over 70% of people support a New Deal agenda. But no politicians are offerring such a thing, and when one comes along, e.g., Nader or Kucinich, a conspiracy instantly materializes between the major parties and among media pundits and academic experts to discredit them, to cause fear, etc. Louis Kontos
-----Original Message-----
From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org on behalf of Wojtek Sokolowski
Sent: Thu 5/27/2004 12:03 PM
Cc:
Subject: [lbo-talk] Political leaning of the US population
Doug:
>
> Far more than 5% of the U.S. pop would be classified as "liberal."
> Probably about 5% would be classifiable as "left," leaving aside
> definitions. For a social scientist, you throw around a lot of
> data-free generalizations.
>
> Around 2/3 of Americans favor affirmative action and
> government-guaranteed universal health care, "even if it means
> raising taxes"
I would not depend on surveys measuring attitudes on an issue or two
whose "ownership" is claimed by this or that political faction. There
are numerous problems with such surveys - chief among them being that
different people define issues in their own personal way regardless of
the claimed 'political ownership." Thus, a person may support the right
to abortion, but reject the feminist interpretation of it or even oppose
the idea of women's rights to choose altogether.
For that reason, I would rather depend on the behavior as an indicator
of political attitudes. Examples of such behavior include voting,
purchasing publications, or interaction in everyday life.
Take voting. Conservative Republicans consistently receive nearly half
of the popular votes if the opposing candidate is a centrist Democrat
(cf. Bush vs. Gore), but that support skyrockets if the Democrat is even
slightly leaning to the left. Such was the case even the supposedly
"liberal" 1960s and 1970s cf. McGovern 37.5% vs. Nixon 60.7% in 1972.
Another indicator is that solidly conservative or right wing "third
parties" command a much higher popular support that solidly progressive
or left wing "third parties. Thus Nader attracted 2.7% of the popular
vote in 2000 and 0.7% on 1996; Anderson (nor exactly a leftie, to be
sure) - 6.6% in 1980. By contrast Perot received 8.4% in 1996, and
18.9% in 1992. Wallace got 13.5% in 1968 - the heyday of the supposedly
liberal era.
http://www.uselectionatlas.org/USPRESIDENT/frametextj.html
These numbers suggest that regardless of how people answer opinion
polls, they prefer conservative candidates to center-left ones, and the
far right outnumbers far-left by the factor 5:1 (Nader in the
"conservative" 2000 vs. Wallace in the "liberal" 1968).
What is more, the left leaning publications, such as The Nation, Mother
Jones, or even New Yorker, are not very popular. If the Us population
was so overwhelmingly supportive of the positions "owned" by the Left,
one would expect the sales of these publications to be much higher,
especially that there not that many titles on the Left.
Another area is interaction in everyday life. People may be publicly
supportive (or not dismissive) of affirmative action - but how much
inter-racial dating there in the US? Forget the dating - how many times
employees of different racial backgrounds go to lunch together? Or take
another issue - using public transit. In most urban (outside the NYC or
DC where it is often the only viable alternative) people avoid it
because it used predominantly by minorities. They also oppose transit
line extensions for the very same reason.
The same can be said about schools. What is more, people tend to
support ballot measures to fund police but oppose funding for public
schools, especially in areas with high numbers of ethnic minorities.
To conclude, I would like to reiterate my argument that the conservative
and right wing politics seem to enjoy a much higher popular support than
left-leaning politics. I would use the Nixon-McGovern split as a proxy
to estimate the popular support of center-left (McGovern) vs a
conservative candidate (Nixon) which is 38% vs. 61%. I would use the
Nader vs. Wallace split (2.7% vs. 13.5%)as a proxy to measure the
popular support of left vs a far right candidate in the US.
PS. Most of the people with whom I came to a direct contact during my
24 or so year stay in the US (longer than in any other country) were
fairly centrist, even by the European standards. But then I have worked
mainly in government or academic institutions, and lived mainly in
Northern CA and Northeast (NYC - DC area). Judging what I see in
central PA (my wife's home state) - which is fairly representative of
anything outside the SF Bay Area, NYC, Boston, DC areas - it is solidly
conservative and often bordering on fascism.
Wojtek