Are Americans really conservative? - Hightower Lowdown

[WillyT]

Sorry, needs subscription: http://www.hightowerlowdown.org/articles/Dec05_v7_n12/Dec05_v7_n12_1.cfm



<snip>

The second thing I really, really want, Santa, is a Democratic party that's not afraid of its own grassroots. The Washington cognoscenti the pundits and the politicos—have decreed that America is a center-right country. Thus, they intone sonorously and ceaselessly, it is sheer folly for Democrats to base their appeal on anyone more progressive than middle- of-the-road, party-switching, SUVdriving, suburbanites whose chief concern is traffic gridlocks.

Astonishingly, party elders have bought this load of bunkum , in large part because they mostly huddle with their consultants, big campaign donors, and others who peddle the bunkum. If they were instead to venture outside the Beltway, outside the safe pods of the national fund-raising circuit, and outside the echo chambers of their orchestrated "town meetings"—if they were to talk with and listen to regular workaday people—they would be astonished to find a different America than they think they're in. Contrary to the contrived wisdom of the cognoscenti, the American majority is amazingly progressive…and pissed off.

How progressive? It doesn't get covered by the corporate media (imagine that), but mainstream polls consistently find that big majorities of Americans are not meek centrists, but overt, tub-thumping, FDR progressives who are seeking far more populist gumption and governmental action than any Democratic congressional leader or presidential contender has dared to imagine. In recent polls by the Pew Research Group, the Opinion Research Corporation, the Wall Street Journal, and CBS News, the American majority has made clear how it feels. Look at how the majority feels about some of the issues that you'd think would be gospel to a real Democratic party:

1. 65% say the government should guarantee health insurance for everyone—even if it means raising taxes.

2. 86% favor raising the minimum wage (including 79% of selfdescribed "social conservatives").

3. 60% favor repealing either all of Bush's tax cuts or at least those cuts that went to the rich.

4. 66% would reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.

5. 77% believe the country should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment.

6. 87% think big oil corporations are gouging consumers, and 80% (including 76% of Republicans) would support a windfall profits tax on the oil giants if the revenues went for more research on alternative fuels.

7. 69% agree that corporate offshoring of jobs is bad for the U.S. economy (78% of "disaffected" voters think this), and only 22% believe offshoring is good because "it keeps costs down."

8. 69% believe America is on the wrong track, with only 26% saying it's headed in the right direction.

Americans might not call themselves progressive—but there they are.

<snip>

Amen Jim... Hey Dems!!! Are you listening!!!

:shrug::wtf::shrug:

[Redstone]

1. I sure wish he'd run for President. I'd vote for him,

that's for damn sure.

Redstone

[Selatius]

2. These numbers are meaningless

Perception is reality. As long as the corporate news media does not report it or downplays it, it may as well not exist. That is the power of propaganda. The only time it fails is when it becomes so overt as to appear ludicrous. As far as managing public perception goes, I would think what the corporate shareholders have done with the corporate outlets is one of the greatest examples of social engineering since the days of Nazi Germany.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

7. No. They're meaningful.

It'll just take another depression to get the ole tub thumping again. And the reforms will be dismantled over the next generation.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

[Selatius]

9. It's not meaningful if we're caught in a stupid loop

Isn't the definition of insanity doing the same thing over again and expecting different results? I want a solution that if implemented tomorrow won't be entirely dismembered by the time I'm 90 years old. It's like a mouse trying to get off that stupid little circular treadmill. You're not going to go anywhere on that thing if you want to get from point A to point B. Sometimes you have to get off and try something else.

[John Q. Citizen]

14. Ain't it the truth. My mom used to say

two steps forward and one step back

[sasquatch]

3. No they aren't listening

The Senate Dems are too busy putting on their pink tutus and dancing for the BFEE instead of listening to the polls that scream "GOD DAMMITT, WILL YOU DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS BUSH BASTARD!!".

[Selatius]

4. Their message to you:

No.

That's been the message since the first days of the new free-trade agenda and the decline of manufacturing in America.

[WillyT]

6. DID SOMEBODY SAY................... PINK TUTUS ???

:rofl::bounce::rofl:

Apparently... an updated version.

:shrug:

[BillZBubb]

5. Polls like this are very misleading.

People say nice things to pollsters, but when they get in the voting booth it doesn't work out the same way. It has to do with the relative priorities of the issues. For instance, a vast majority of social conservatives favor raising the minimum wage--but put that against an anti-choice Repug and the Repug gets their vote every time. Same thing for the environment. I talk to Repugs all the time who swear they support strong enviromental protection. But every time they vote for the anti-environment Repug over a pro-environment Dem.

The sad fact is this is a right wing country. Sure, people say they support progressive items, but when they vote its the right wing priorities that draw them. Do a poll on God, guns, gays, and the death penalty--you'll get a more right wing result.

[Selatius]

8. That sounds like an issue of our two-party system

If the Democratic Party were examined, you would find several groups in the party if we were to try and correspond them to other political parties in other representative democracies:

Christian Democrats
Social Democrats
Greens
Democratic socialists
Labor

The thing is most people sit in the middle with regards to economic issues, but they're also in the middle with respect to issues such as abortion and gay marriage. Some folks I talked to don't like abortion as it currently stands and would like a law, for instance, that bans abortions for anything past the 6th month of pregnancy, but they wouldn't go and support banning abortions entirely unlike the extreme social authoritarians unless they were forced into an "all or nothing" situation in the voting booth.

If you asked people about economic issues such as minimum wage laws, labor standards, environmental standards, the issue of free trade, corporate compensation of top executives, etc., I would assert the concensus is solidly center-left. However, it appears to me the Democrats are center-right, and the Republicans have adopted the far right positions. I just don't understand how a Democratic Congress could let something such as NAFTA.

[melody]

10. They have done such polls

On the Thatcher-Wayne study which tracked American opinions on 350 topics, including guys, gays and gods, the study found
that 54% of Americans score in the moderate-to-progressive category, taking all issues into account. This is not a right
wing country. Unfortunately, the bullies in the corporate powerbase know how to work human psychology. And when it has
failed (as it has the last twenty years), then they just yanked the electoral process away from us. If this was a "right wing"
country, there would be no need for Diebold or to jet Bush in and out of military bases in the dark of night just to do
"public appearances".

[WillyT]

12. Most Excellent Point Melody !!!

"If this was a "right wing" country, there would be no need for Diebold or to jet Bush in and out of military bases in the dark of night just to do "public appearances".

Most Excellent!

:toast:

[John Q. Citizen]

15. I disagree. Your analysis is the same as the "Republican lite"

Democrats who are scared shitless they better appear to be "moderate" or they don't have a snowballs chance in hell.

This perpetrates the very problem it attempts to circumvent.

Why vote for a scardy cat who won't even tell the truth?

[Warpy]

11. THIS is why we need to dump the DLC

if they refuse to start listening to what ordinary working folks want and need. So far, all they're doing is pursing their lips and sneering every time Dean tells them a little home truth.

You'd think the election of Schweitzer in Montana, an unabashed progressive and economic populist who won a huge victory in one of the reddest states in the country, would have caused a few clue phones to ring inside the beltway.

Oh well, it didn't. I guess they only accept calls from each other.

[John Q. Citizen]

16. Nah, we just need to reign 'em in a little. Maybe switch a few out

here or there for progressives and I'm sure they will get a clue. They could actually be very helpful, if put to good use.

Politically Schweitzer is interesting. He benefited from the disaster of 12 years of Republican single party rule capped by Martz, and running with a Repo LT Governor didn't hurt either.

He neutralized the Repo social issues and ran on the economy and the environment, as well as running on being a "real Montanan."


edit for spelling

[John Q. Citizen]

13. Hightower is correct. I spent three years canvassing door to door

50 weeks a year, 5 days a week for 5 hours a day. I worked for Statewide non-profit citizens groups working on issues that affected lower and middle income folks.

In my three years of knocking on doors, I worked in 7 states (OR, WA, CA,ID,MT,MN, and MD) and knocked on tens of thousands of doors a years, spoke to people about progressive issues, raised consciousness and money and helped get people involved.

While most Americans describe themselves as somewhat conservative, when you start chatting with them about issues like healthcare, fair taxation, the environment, education, etc it's amazing how liberal our people are, even if they aren't always self aware of this liberalism exactly.

Some of our leadership gets this and some of the leadership is entirely out of touch with just how progressive most Americans are on the issues.