This is my first post in an ongoing series on public perception of the democrats and the misconception that the US is generally a right-leaning country.
Other developed nations have been racing ahead of us when it comes to enacting progressive policies; left-wing politicians in the US regularly face charges that they are not patriotic, that they are socialists–New England, Ivy League elites out of touch with mainstream, mainstreet Americans. And if you spoke out against the Iraq War, like I did, chances are you felt like an isolated heretic in a sea of conservatives. Heck, that’s how I still feel most of the time when I turn on the news and hear about what’s going on with the Tea Party!
But believe it or not, polls tracking partisan trends sends 2004 show that a consistent plurality of Americans identify with democrats. When these polls are expanded to include sympathizers (people who generally vote republican/democrat but aren’t necessarily members of either party), we find the same trend: with very few exceptions, more Americans sympathized with the democrats than with republicans from 2004-2010. When sympathizers are included, we also find that for most of the 2004-2010 period either a majority of Americans or a very significant plurality (almost a majority) supported the democrats.
Here are two well-regarded polls tracking partisan trends. Rasmussen shows a more consistent democratic trend in the US, unbroken until November 2010; Gallup includes the sympathizers and shows a strong democratic trend despite a little bit of variation.
The Gallup poll: http://www.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx
The Rasmussen poll: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/archive/mood_of_america_archive/partisan_trends/summary_of_party_affiliation
Of course, both polls show that since 2010, there has been a lot more back and forth between republicans and democrats. For now though, let’s content ourselves with the knowledge that from 2004-2010, more Americans identified with democrats than with republicans. I’m going to have to write an entire post later on why things started getting mixed up: what’s happened since 2008 on the right is unprecedented in American history and deserves a much closer look.
Now, what about before 2004, you ask? The Pew Research Center has shown that more people supported democrats from the 1930s all the way up until 9/11, when republican affiliation jumped to about 30% and democratic membership fell to 31%. They point out that, actually, it wasn’t until 9/11 that republicans had even close to the membership of the Democratic Party. Since then, as shown above, more Americans support democrats than republicans, but the margin is much smaller.
As the study points out, since Republicans have higher voter turnout rates, the smaller advantage of the democrats puts them at risk in elections. I'm sure we all remember Bush/Gore, when the country consistently polled democrat, even voted democrat, and yet still lost the election by a hair's width.
Granted, for a good deal of the period in the Pew Research Center study (1930s and on), the democrats and republicans did not represent what they do today. Many people switched sides during the Civil Rights movement, thanks in part to the Southern Strategy–republican pandering to the rise of the white middle class in the south and their racial prejudices. Still, since that realignment and up until 9/11, the democrats solidly trounced republicans when it came to the raw number of people identifying themselves with either party.
The Pew Research Center study: http://people-press.org/2003/11/05/part-1-party-affiliation/
Historically then, America is not a conservative nation, and certainly not a republican nation. If you’re a progressive out there feeling lonely, you’re definitely not alone. You shouldn’t be afraid to speak out for what you believe–much of the alienation is self-enforcing: conservatives tell us we are marginalized extremists out-of-touch with mainstreet so we don’t speak our minds when we’re around “normal” people, and we probably often mistake solid democrats for republicans.
The fact that so many of us live in the closet politically also means that a large swath of the population, folks who aren’t particularly keen on politics and aren’t sure who believes what and who they agree with, don’t know what progressives stand for. As it turns out, many progressive policies, such as raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans, are very popular, even amongst conservatives. Undoubtedly, if we spoke out more in our everyday lives, more people will know what we stand for, and consequently, more people will realize they already support some of the fundamental tenets of the American left.
In my next post, I’ll talk about the democrats’ voter base, which draws heavily on minorities and women, and how this might feed into the perception that we are so isolated.
