General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"What America’s leftward shift means for elections"
What Americas leftward shift means for electionsBy Bill Schneider at Reuters
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2014/02/18/what-americas-leftward-shift-means-for-elections/
"SNIP........................................
With each new poll, its becoming clear that the United States is shifting to the left. A majority of Americans now supports same-sex marriage. And legalization of marijuana. And normalization of relations with Cuba.
Gallup reports that, in 2013, the percentage of Americans identifying themselves as liberals reached its highest level since 1992. True, its only 23 percent. Conservatives, at 38 percent, still outnumber liberals. But the trend has been slowly and steadily upward for liberals since 1996, when it was 16 percent.
This shift is due entirely to Democrats becoming more liberal 29 percent of Democrats in 2000, 43 percent in 2013. At the same time, Democrats have won the national popular vote in five out of the six presidential elections since 1992 (all but 2004). Barack Obama won a majority of the popular vote twice something Bill Clinton couldnt do.
The New America has come to power. Its a coalition of 10 Democratic constituencies that united to elect and re-elect Obama: young voters, working women, single mothers, African-Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans, Jews, gays, educated professionals and the unchurched (the nearly one in five Americans who have no religious affiliation). Eight of those 10 constituencies all but Jews and African-Americans are growing as a percentage of the electorate.
......................................SNIP"
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)progressoid
(50,008 posts)Socially, there is some movement to the left.
But politically, it's more of a rejection of the old, white teabagger, GOP rather than a shift to the left.
Other than a few exceptions, I don't see our party being moving to the left.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)It'll catch up.
socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)That's because the Democratic Party is only "left" in a relative sense. They're there to give us the illusion of a choice. IOW, you have a choice between a RW Democrat and a bat-shit crazy Republican semi-fascist.
There IS no left in any real sense of the word in United States electoral politics.
msongs
(67,465 posts)Cha
(297,886 posts)Wounded Bear
(58,757 posts)Social issues are nice to win on, but what is really needed is a hard progressive shift in economic policy.
socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)Because left wing economic populism won't come out of the Democratic Party and it CERTAINLY won't come out of the Republican Party either. There's too much money involved in the political status quo (neo-liberalism or as we say in this country Reaganism) for anybody in the political establishment to buck that system.
Triana
(22,666 posts)....have more than offset this shift.
deutsey
(20,166 posts)the elites are going to have to work even harder than they already are to undermine the electoral process in America.
socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)people are politically. It makes MUCH more sense to look at where people stand on ISSUES, rather than self-identification. It's more of a true indicator of where people actually stand on the political spectrum. And on ISSUES you might as well throw the ones that call themselves "moderate" into the leftward side. Because on ISSUES, those moderates are almost as fully left and the liberals are.
TNLib
(1,819 posts)Because the GOP has gone off the rails with their teabagger loony take over no one has any other options. Meanwhile the Democratic party has been taken over by corporatist that are moderate on social issues.