One game liberals play is to move the goalposts by changing what words mean. They do this all the time, but those I’m concerned with here are terms that identify where you fall on the political spectrum. With the Democrats shifting further to the left, they have shifted the meanings along the spectrum — after all, only conservatives identify someone like Michael Moore or Cindy Sheehan as a leftist or far-leftist, whereas the Democrats happily embrace them as their own.
Let’s look at the current rhetoric about the SCOTUS appointees. Dick Durbin, Chuck Schumer, Diane Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Harry Reid, Howard Dean, they all keep referring to “mainstream America” as they defend their pro-judicial activist position and object to the court nominee. “Mainstream,” then, means “liberal” (and in this particular context, refers mostly to abortion, so “mainstream” means here pro-abortion). Democrats have moved “mainstream” with them leftward along the political spectrum.
They learned in 1980 that the word “liberal” doesn’t get them any voters — indeed, the McGovern party knocked them out of the White House for 12 years, and Clinton only got elected because he presented himself as a moderate. After the 2000, then 2002, then 2004 elections, Democrats talked endlessly about how they needed to learn to talk to voters, as if the words they used, and not the political agenda, were the problem.
Then there’s the myth of the American moderate, the belief that this represents the bulk of Americans. This myth is often made even more confusing (and untrue) by conflating “moderate” with “independent,” even though “independent” describes someone who feels no particular affiliation to a party, and says nothing about where he falls on the political spectrum.
And of course, everyone to the right of “mainstream” and “moderate” is an “extremist.”
However, let’s look at the results of the latest battleground poll. The original question:
D3. When thinking about politics and government, do you consider yourself to be . (READ LIST, ROTATE TOP TO BOTTOM, BOTTOM TO TOP)
| Very conservative | 21% |
| Somewhat conservative | 40% |
| Moderate | 2% |
| Somewhat liberal | 27% |
| Very liberal | 8% |
| Refused/unsure | 2% |
Since it’s not clear where the line falls between “somewhat” and “very,” let’s conflate the above:
| Conservative | 61% |
| Moderate | 2% |
| Liberal | 35% |
| Refused/unsure | 2% |
This presents a very different picture from Democrat rhetoric, which holds liberalism to be “mainstream.” While 35% is not a trivial section of the population, a full 61%, a clear majority, identify themselves as conservative. Now, any reasonable, honest observer would conclude that conservatives, by their majority number, form the mainstream — and not liberals. But Democrats must continue to try to present themselves as representing the majority, because this is the only source of credibility they have, and the only source they have used since FDR. If they truly were a populist party as they claim, they would reflect the conservatism of the majority of voters.
Little needs to be said about political moderates, since only 2% of voters — the same number that either refused to answer or did not know where they fell politically — identified as “moderates.” Only i the very tightest races would a candidate need to appeal to this segment of the political spectrum.
But while we’re looking at the survey, let’s look at the original results, and compare those who identify as very conservative (21%) to those who identify as very liberal (8%). Not only does this support the concept that the American mainstream is further to the right than the Democrats believe, but when compared to the stats for somewhat conservative and liberal, it shows that those who identify as very liberal form 22.9% of the liberal base, while those who identify as very conservative form 34.4% of the conservative base.
The “very liberal,” then, are more properly called “extremists” or “the fringe” than are the “very conservative,” and that is without taking into account the fact that most Americans identify themselves as conservatives.
Save these stats. You may want to use them the next time some liberal tries to claim that he is a “populist” or that conservatives are “extremists.”
Next: What do these data mean for conservatives?
