If a week is a long time in politics, then a decade feels like a lifetime.
Sometimes, it’s hard to remember where we were ten years ago. Granted, some things remain ever the same – Russia’s waging a war in Ukraine, and populist parties are taking over across Europe.
Yet, in the U.S., it seems incomparable to where we are now. In 2014, Donald Trump hadn’t even announced his first presidential campaign, and the differences between left and right seemed miniscule compared to today’s divided society.
A post on the social media platform X made light of the deepening divisions across the American political system. It featured a stick figure who was once center left finding himself aligned with conservative values.
Why? Well, the post implied that the left had moved from classic liberalism to downright “woke progressives”, thus shifting the center of the spectrum to the left as a result.
Anecdotally it seems like it’s undeniable that what the meme above is describing is in fact reality – and that’s empirically the case too.
The Economist measured the ideology of Democrat and Republican congressional candidates since 1980 —and while the ideology of the average Republican elected has moved slightly to the right, the ideology of the average Democrat elected has gone at least five times as far to the left.
The Pew Research Center published a study in October 2017 tracking the growing ideological divide in America since the 1990s. And the main finding? That while Republicans have moved a centimeter to the right, Democrats have moved a mile to the left. To dive into the other findings:
- On several key issues, except for environmental regulations, Democrats moved further to the left than Republicans moved to the right. In most cases, Republicans’ views remained relatively unchanged over the past two decades.
- Nearly half of Democrats in the 1990s expressed concern over poor people receiving welfare for nothing in return, compared to 18 percent by 2017.
- Nearly six in ten Democrats in the 1990s agreed that government spending is almost always wasteful and inefficient.
- Roughly half of Democrats in the 1990s agreed that government regulation of businesses usually does more harm than good.
- On race issues, over half of Democrats in the 1990s agreed that “blacks who can’t get ahead in this country are mostly responsible for their own condition.” That remained constant until the second half of the Obama presidency, when it plummeted to 28 percent.
But it seems like most people have already taken notice that “far right” increasingly just means “normal a decade ago.”
This is particularly prudent when you consider the negative connotations associated with patriotism these days. Displaying the flag of the United States, chanting “U.S.A” or even just being proud of one’s country is seemingly met with hositility from those who prefer the flags and regimes of Palestine instead.
Granted, it would be unfair to say that ultra-conservatives have not shifted at all, but the difference in movement between them and those who were once considered liberals is quite simply astounding.
