The Death of Conservatism

ETWolverine · Oct 27, 2009, 02:37 PM

Sam Tanenhaus, an liberal historian, recently wrote a book called "The Death of Conservastism". In it, he tries to prove that the title is true.

Well, not quite yet...

Quote:

October 26, 2009

Conservatives Maintain Edge as Top Ideological Group

Compared with 2008, more Americans “conservative” in general, and on issues

by Lydia Saad

PRINCETON, NJ -- Conservatives continue to outnumber moderates and liberals in the American populace in 2009, confirming a finding that Gallup first noted in June. Forty percent of Americans describe their political views as conservative, 36% as moderate, and 20% as liberal. This marks a shift from 2005 through 2008, when moderates were tied with conservatives as the most prevalent group.

"Changes among political independents appear to be the main reason the percentage of conservatives has increased nationally over the past year: the 35% of independents describing their views as conservative in 2009 is up from 29% in 2008."

The 2009 data are based on 16 separate Gallup surveys conducted from January through September, encompassing more than 5,000 national adults per quarter. Conservatives have been the dominant ideological group each quarter, with between 39% and 41% of Americans identifying themselves as either "very conservative" or "conservative." Between 35% and 37% of Americans call themselves "moderate," while the percentage calling themselves "very liberal" or "liberal" has consistently registered between 20% and 21% -- making liberals the smallest of the three groups.

Independents Inch to the Right
Changes among political independents appear to be the main reason the percentage of conservatives has increased nationally over the past year: the 35% of independents describing their views as conservative in 2009 is up from 29% in 2008. By contrast, among Republicans and Democrats, the percentage who are "conservative" has increased by one point each.

As is typical in recent years, Republicans are far more unified in their political outlook than are either independents or Democrats. While 72% of Republicans in 2009 call their views conservative, independents are closely split between the moderate and conservative labels (43% and 35%, respectively). Democrats are about evenly divided between moderates (39%) and liberals (37%).

Americans Also Moving Right on Some Issues

In addition to the increase in conservatism on this general ideology measure, Gallup finds higher percentages of Americans expressing conservative views on several specific issues in 2009 than in 2008.

Perceptions that there is too much government regulation of business and industry jumped from 38% in September 2008 to 45% in September 2009.
The percentage of Americans saying they would like to see labor unions have less influence in the country rose from 32% in August 2008 to a record-high 42% in August 2009.
Public support for keeping the laws governing the sale of firearms the same or making them less strict rose from 49% in October 2008 to 55% in October 2009, also a record high. (The percentage saying the laws should become more strict -- the traditionally liberal position -- fell from 49% to 44%.)
The percentage of Americans favoring a decrease in immigration rose from 39% in June/July 2008 to 50% in July 2009.
The propensity to want the government to "promote traditional values" -- as opposed to "not favor any particular set of values" -- rose from 48% in 2008 to 53% in 2009. Current support for promoting traditional values is the highest seen in five years.
The percentage of Americans who consider themselves "pro-life" on abortion rose from 44% in May 2008 to 51% in May 2009, and remained at a slightly elevated 47% in July 2009.
Americans' belief that the global warming problem is "exaggerated" inthe news rose from 35% in March 2008 to 41% in March 2009.

Gallup has not recorded heightened conservatism on all major social and political views held by Americans. For instance, attitudes on the death penalty, gay marriage, the Iraq war, and Afghanistan have stayed about the same since 2008. However, there are no major examples of U.S. public opinion becoming more liberal in the past year. (Gallup's annual trends on healthcare will be updated in November, so those attitudes are not included in this review.)

The conservative shifts discussed here result as much from changes in political independents' views as from changes in Republicans' views. Democrats' views, by contrast, have generally changed only slightly -- either to the conservative or liberal side -- with two exceptions: Gallup finds greater movement in Democrats' views of abortion, which have become more liberal, and their views of labor unions, which have become more conservative.

Bottom Line
Americans are more likely to consider themselves conservative this year than they were in 2008, resulting in conservatives -- now 40% of the American public -- outnumbering moderates for the first time since 2004. While Gallup first documented this trend in June, the finding has been sustained through the third quarter.

Conservatism is most prevalent among Republicans. However, the overall increase in this ideological stance since 2008 comes largely from political independents, among whom 35% say they are conservatives thus far in 2009 -- compared with 29% last year. Independents have also become more conservative on a number of specific policy issues, including government and union power, the role of government relative to promoting values, gun laws, immigration, global warming, and abortion. Republicans, most of whom considered themselves ideologically conservative in 2008, have also grown more conservative on several of these issues this year, while less change is seen among Democrats.

All of this has potentially important implications at the ballot box, particularly for the 2010 midterm elections. The question is whether increased conservatism, particularly among independents, will translate into heightened support for Republican candidates. Right now, it appears it may. Although Gallup polling continues to show the Democratic Party leading the Republican Party in Americans' party identification, that lead has been narrowing since the beginning of the year and now stands at six points, the smallest since 2005. According to Gallup Managing Editor Jeff Jones, "the Democratic-Republican gap is narrowing because more independents now say they lean to the Republican Party." That trend aligns with the recent changes in how independents perceive their own ideology and where they stand on some key issues.
Survey Methods
The 2009 political ideology results reported here are based on 16 aggregated Gallup surveys conducted from January to September 2009. For results based on the total sample of 16,321 national adults, aged 18 and older, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±1 percentage point.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones (for respondents with a land-line telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell-phone only).

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

Source: Conservatives Maintain Edge as Top Ideological Group

So much for the Death of Conservatism. More Americans identify themselves as Conservatives than before the 2008 election. They have now seen liberalism, and they don't like it. They have seen moderation, and they find it ineffective at combating liberalism. They have also seen conservatism, and they increasingly indentify with what it represents.

In that sense Obama is turning out to be the best thing that could have happened to Conservatism in America. He's shown the American people an option that they DON'T like, and they are reacting to it.

You can bet the Republican Party is seeing this trend... and starting to vote accordingly in Congress. And if the Party wants to survive, they'll have to move to the RIGHT to pick up these conservative votes.

The rumors of the demise of Conservatism in America have been greatly exagerated.

Elliot

excon · Oct 28, 2009, 06:45 AM

Hello Elliot:

I notice your poll cites CONSERVATIVES and NOT REPUBLICANS.. Assuming the accuracy of the poll, why do only 20% of Americans identify themselves as Republicans? http://www.zyz.com/survivalcenter/foodstor.html.

Could it be that most conservatives are of the somewhat centrist brand who Republicans have been throwing under the bus?

excon

George_1950 · Oct 28, 2009, 06:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by excon

Could it be that most conservatives are of the somewhat centrist brand who Republicans have been throwing under the bus?

excon

That sounds like Glenn Beck.

ETWolverine · Oct 28, 2009, 07:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TUT317

What does conservative America believe in other than stopping governments impinging on individual freedoms? This is intended as a serious question.

First of all, if that were all that Conservatives believed in, wouldn't that be enough?

Second of all, for a detailed explanation of what we believe, I give you this excerpt from Mark Levin's "Liberty & Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto". It is from the final chapter of the book, in which he states what Conservatism believes and what we call on the people to support.

Quote:

A CONSERVATIVE MANIFESTO
1. TAXATION
Eliminate' the progressive income tax-replace it with a flat incometax or national sales tax-for its purpose is to redistributewealth, not fund the constitutionally legitimate functions of the federal government.

All residents of the country must be required to pay the tax so they have a stake in limiting its abuse.

Eliminate the automatic withholding of taxes, for it conceals the extent to which the federal government is confiscating income from its citizens.

Eliminate the corporate income tax, for it is nothing more than double taxation on shareholders and consumers, and penalizes wealth and job creation.

Eliminate the death tax, for it denies citizens the right to confer the material value they have created during their lives towhomever they wish, including their family.

All federal income tax increases will require a supermajority vote of three-fifths of Congress.

Limit federal spending each year to less than 20 percent of the gross domestic product.

2. ENVIRONMENT
Eliminate the special tax-exempt status granted to environmental groups, since they are not nonpartisan charitable foundations.

Eliminate special statutory authority granting environmental groups standing to bring lawsuits on behalf of the public, since their main purpose is to pursue the Statist's agenda through litigation.

Fight all efforts to use environmental regulations to set governmental industrial policies and diminish the nation's standard of living, such as "cap & trade" to regulate "man-made climate change."

3. JUDGES
Limit the Supreme Court's judicial-review power, which far exceeds the Framers' intent, by establishing a legislative veto over Court decisions-perhaps a two-thirds supermajority vote of both houses of Congress, not dissimilar from the congressional override authority of a presidential veto.

Eliminate lifetime tenure for federal judges, given the extra constitutional power they have amassed and their routine intervention in political and policy decisions-which the Constitution leaves to the representative branches.

No judicial nominee should be confirmed who rejects the jurisprudence of originalism.

4. THE ADMINISTRATIVE STATE
Sunset all "independent" federal agencies each year, subject to Congress affirmatively reestablishing them.

Require federal departments and agencies to reimburse individuals and enterprises for the costs associated with the devaluation of their private property from the issuance of regulations that compromise the use of their property.

Eliminate unions for federal government employees, since the purpose of a civil service system is to promote merit and professionalism over patronage, and the purpose of federal unions is to empower themselves and promote statism.

Reduce the civilian federal workforce by 20 percent or more.

5. GOVERNMENT EDUCATION
Eliminate monopoly control of government education by applying the antitrust laws to the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers; the monopoly is destructive of quality education and competition and is unresponsive to the taxpayers who fund it.

Eliminate tenure for government schoolteachers and college/university professors, making them accountable for the quality of instruction they provide students.

Strip the statist agenda from curricula (such as multiculturalism and global warming) and replace it with curricula that reinforce actual education and the preservation of the civil society through its core principles.

Eliminate the federal Department of Education, since education is primarily a state and local function.

6. IMMIGRATION
Eliminate chain migration, which grants control over immigration policy to aliens and foreign governments, and which the Statist defends to expand his electoral and administrative state constituency.

Secure the nation's borders and discourage those who violate them-illegal alien and citizen lawbreaker alike-by enforcing the immigration laws.

End multiculturalism, diversity, and bilingualism in public institutions, which beget poverty, animosity, and ethnic balkanization; promote assimilation and unity of citizenship, allegiance to American culture, and English as the official national language.

7.ENTITLEMENTS
Social Security is going bankrupt. Medicare is going bankrupt. Medicaid is going bankrupt. These programs and others have accumulated more than $50 trillion in IOUs due and payable by subsequent generations. Educate the young people about the intergenerational trap the Statist has laid for them-which will steal their liberty, labor, opportunities, and wealth-and build a future electoral force for whom the elixir of entitlements is understood as poisonous snake oil. These programs were created in politics and will have to be addressed in politics. Only in this way can they be contained, limited, and reformed.

Fight all efforts to nationalize the health-care system. National health care is the mother of all entitlement programs, for through it the Statist controls not only the material wealth of the individual but his physical well-being. Remind the people that politicians and bureaucrats, about whom they are already cynical, will ultimately have the final say over their choice of doctors, hospitals, and treatments-meaning the system will be politicized and bureaucratized. Remind them that this human experiment has been tried and has failed in places like Britain and Canada, where patients have been subjected to arbitrary treatment decisions, long waiting periods for lifesaving surgeries, antiquated medical technologies, the denial of high-cost pharmaceuticals available elsewhere, and the inefficient rationing of health care generally.

And remind them that despite past utopian promises, the Statist rarely delivers.

8. FOREIGN POLICY AND SECURITY
Ensure that all foreign policy decisions are made for the purpose of preserving and improving American society.

Reject all treaties, entanglements, institutions, and enterprises that have as their purpose the supplantation of America's best interests, including its physical, cultural, economic, and militarysovereignty, to an amorphous "global" interest.

Ensure that America remains the world's superpower. Ensure that at all times America's military forces are prepared for war to dissuade attacks, encourage peace, and, if necessary, win any war.

9. FAITH
Oppose all efforts to denude the nation of its founding justification- that is, God-given unalienable, natural rights that the government can neither confer on the individual nor deny to him. The Statist seeks the authority to do both, which explains his contempt for, or misuse of, faith. Moreover, faith provides the moral order that ties one generation to the next, and without which the civil society cannot survive.

10. THE CONSTITUTION
Demand that all public servants, elected or appointed, at all times uphold the Constitution and justify their public acts under the Constitution.

Oppose all efforts to "constitutionalize" the statist agenda. Eliminate limits on and rationing of political free speech through unconstitutional "campaign finance" laws, which benefit incumbent politicians, the media, unions, and other Statist related groups. Any American citizen or group of American citizens should be free to contribute to candidates as they wish, as long as the source, amount, and recipient of the contributions are made known.

Defeat all efforts to unconstitutionally regulate the content of political speech on broadcast outlets, such as radio. The Statist now seeks to consolidate the power he has accumulated by silencing noncompliant voices through a variety of schemes that would regulate broadcast content.

President Reagan said, "Freedom is never more than one generationaway from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."

We 'Conservatives need to get busy.

You want to know what Conservatives in America believe in? This is a good start. The list is fairly comperhensive. There may some disagreement on specific issues, but this serves as a good starting point for what we generally believe.

Elliot

ETWolverine · Oct 28, 2009, 08:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by excon

Hello Elliot:

I notice your poll cites CONSERVATIVES and NOT REPUBLICANS.. Assuming the accuracy of the poll, why do only 20% of Americans identify themselves as Republicans? http://www.zyz.com/survivalcenter/foodstor.html.

Could it be that most conservatives are of the somewhat centrist brand who Republicans have been throwing under the bus?

excon

Actually, it is exactly the opposite.

The Republicans have thrown Conservatives under the bus by being more moderate than most Conservatives are. You can see how, on an issue-by-issue basis, most Americans are to the RIGHT of the Republican party. The McCain Middle has lost the support of the Reagan Right majority.

So the bottom line is that if the Republicans want to start winning elections again, they are going to have to go back to their Conservative roots and move back to the right where they belong. Or else they will continue to lose elections until a new crop of conservative leaders take over the party and move the party to the right. It's just a matter of time. Either way, the Republican party will HAVE to move back to the right because that's where most Americans see themselves on the issues.

Elliot

excon · Oct 28, 2009, 08:17 AM

Hello again, Elliot:

Let's look at that, shall we??? According to your poll, 76% of the people are conservative or moderate. According to my poll, only 20% are now Republicans...

Then, according to your argument, 56% of these identifiable conservatives and moderates either dropped out of the Republican party or never were members. They did it because, according to you, the Republicans aren't rightwing enough for them, and these people are just waiting for the Republicans to catch up with them..

Meanwhile, these 56% of conservatives aren't members of any party. Is that what you would you'd have us believe? Dude!

excon

ETWolverine · Oct 28, 2009, 08:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by excon

Hello again, Elliot:

Let's look at that, shall we??? According to your poll, 76% of the people are conservative or moderate. According to my poll, only 20% are now Republicans...

Then, according to your argument, 56% of these identifiable conservatives and moderates either dropped out of the Republican party or never were members. They did it because, according to you, the Republicans aren't rightwing enough for them, and these people are just waiting for the Republicans to catch up with them..

Meanwhile, these 56% of conservatives aren't members of any party. Is that what you would you'd have us believe? Dude!

excon

Or, it could mean that the pollsters only gave them ONE OPTION... EITHER Republican OR Conservative... and they identified with the ideology more than they did with the party. Personally, I am a Conservative first, and a Republican only a distant second. I think that most of that 76% see themselves the same way. There's your 56% of Conservatives... they identify as Conservatives first and Republicans only a distant 2nd... because the party that they belong to has moved too far to the left.

Sorry, excon. Your wishes for the demise of the Republicans and Conservatives is undone. Ain't gonna happen.

Elliot

George_1950 · Oct 28, 2009, 12:14 PM

I mean, just think about it: If the nation knew today what Obama was all about, would he win a national election for POTUS? No

Conservatism as we understand it - the love of liberty and the constitution - will never die nor be in a minority. The challenge is to keep the intellectuals, politicians and press in line. They are the ones wanting to buy into all the progressive crap. I'm not saying there is no evolution within society: I have no problem with a woman president nor my wife supporting me. But freedom and liberty are written within the breast of every person; and Obama does not represent that. Neither does McCain.

TUT317 · Oct 28, 2009, 03:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by George_1950

I mean, just think about it: If the nation knew today what Obama was all about, would he win a national election for POTUS? No

Conservatism as we understand it - the love of liberty and the constitution - will never die nor be in a minority. The challenge is to keep the intellectuals, politicians and press in line. They are the ones wanting to buy into all the progressive crap. I'm not saying there is no evolution within society: I have no problem with a woman president nor my wife supporting me. But freedom and liberty are written within the breast of every person; and Obama does not represent that. Neither does McCain.

George, don't forget it was intellectuals that gave you the constitution in the first place eg. John Locke.

Elliot, You seemed to have summarized "Liberty and Tyranny" very well. I attempt to get a copy and read it. However, I have the feeling I have read something like this before in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.

George_1950 · Oct 28, 2009, 09:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TUT317

George, don't forget it was intellectuals that gave you the constitution in the first place eg. John Locke.

Today's intellectuals don't consider Locke, Washington, Jefferson, the Adamses, Madison, Franklin et al, intellectuals, either; they were racists, bigots, and homophobes.

speechlesstx · Oct 29, 2009, 06:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by excon

Hello Elliot:

I notice your poll cites CONSERVATIVES and NOT REPUBLICANS.. Assuming the accuracy of the poll, why do only 20% of Americans identify themselves as Republicans? http://www.zyz.com/survivalcenter/foodstor.html.

Did you miss this part? "Although Gallup polling continues to show the Democratic Party leading the Republican Party in Americans' party identification, that lead has been narrowing since the beginning of the year and now stands at six points, the smallest since 2005."

Sounds to me like Americans are saying both parties suck. But since conservatism is on the rise and the gap in party affiliation is narrowing, it sucks more for Democrats. I think they know that, and has something to do with why they're trying to ram as much of their crap down our throats as quickly as they can - as surreptitiously as they can.