the Middle moved... a long time ago

[ThatRobGuy]

I don't think that conservative vs liberal can be measured the way you are doing here. If this was the case then today we would consider the rather libertarian founding fathers as arch conservatives since they favored slavery. That people shift positions towards social justice is a known trend. That does not make conservatives suddenly more liberal. I'll see if I can track down any sociology studies on the subject. Thanks for taking the time to explain why you view it this way.

How I tend to look at it...

In terms of "liberal vs. conservative", in the commonly used contexts in US political conversation...

You have the social and the economic.

On the social side, you have things like
Gay Marriage
Abortion
Drugs
Immigration
Guns

Economically, you have things like
Healthcare
Education
Tax Policy
Social Safety Nets

On all of those things except for maybe one or two, the right has moved left...just not as fast or as far as the left has on some of those issues.

So if you take far-right person today, they might be further apart on the spectrum than a far-left person when you compare that to how far apart the parties may have been in 1995.

But I see that as more of a symptom of the left moving left more quickly than they have in past 20 year time windows.

If you look at the difference between a liberal in 1975 and a liberal in 1995, you won't see nearly as a stark of a contrast as if you compared a liberal from 2005 to a liberal in 2020.


So it could just be a matter of perspectives.

If through the recent past, the right and left gradually drifted more left step for step, then all of the sudden you have a 20 year time period where for every step the right moves left, the left moves 2 steps, it's going to create the perception that "the right is moving further right" from the perspective of someone who'd be considered "pretty far left" on the spectrum.


I attribute a lot of that to the fact that some folks on the left, particularly younger folks, are expecting social change on a variety of issues at an unheard of pace when compared to the rest of US history.

Changing the social attitudes on just about any topic is going to take time, but it does typically trend in the direction of social justice, as you noted.

When explaining this, I often compare & contrast the timelines and expectations between the gay rights movement and trans rights movement.

The fight for gay marriage rights started in 1970. It wasn't until around 1990 when the first local domestic partnership was recognized...it would be another decade until a state level entity recognized a civil union, then another few years until a state recognized a full fledged "marriage", then it would be 2015 when SCOTUS made their official landmark ruling.

45 years it took...but it did eventually happen.

There seems to be this expectation today, that any social justice issue that isn't fully addressed through swift radical change 2 months after it being identified, is totally unacceptable, and that anyone standing in the way should be declared "the enemy of freedom"

 

[ThatRobGuy]

The reason for those accusations is that, even though the average Republican voter is more favorably inclined to "liberal" social issues, Republican leadership is not. If you personally support LGBT rights but vote for politicians that enact policies designed to oppress the LGBT community because of their positions on taxes and the 2nd Amendment, that sends a message to the members of the LGBT community that they - actual human beings - are less important to you than money and guns. From there, it's reasonable to conclude that maybe you do hate the LGBT community - even if you actually don't.

If you want to get rid of the stigma without moving to the Democratic party, it's on you to work to nominate Republican candidates who share your social views along with your economic views. We see this in the Democratic party with the recent rise of the Justice Democrats, but there doesn't seem to be an equivalent movement within the Republican party.

Overall, the metrics that I would use to point to the Republican Party's march to the right are:
- Increased nationalist sentiments. This includes more restrictive immigration policies, protectionist trade policies, isolationism on the world stage, glorification of the military/police, and general xenophobia
- Outsize influence of religion on party politics. This applies more to the party than to the political right as a whole, but since the 90s, Christianity - especially of the Evangelical variety - has become integral to the Republican platform. This seems to be slowly starting to swing back a bit, but not by much
- Support for regressive economic policy. Trickle-down economics doesn't work as advertised - it's been amply demonstrated under Reagan, Bush, and now Trump. And yet Republicans continue to push it as the solution to all problems

I think some of the social attitudes on things often get falsely attributed to party, when they should actually be attributed to region, as well the aspect that people prioritize issues a different way than other folks, and it can't necessarily be used as an "indicator" of someone's virtue.

For instance, you have a lot of people in the Northeast who identify as republican, yet the social attitudes on things like LGBT matters are pretty progressive.

To contrast that, you have a lot of people in the south, who still identify as democrats, who are very much against it.


So my question would be, who's more tolerant of/pro LGBT?

A republican in Massachusetts, who's in favor of LGBT rights, but happens to prioritize some other things over those issues?

Or a democrat in the south, who may actually hate gay people, but vote democrat simply because there's a mindset in the community that "democrats are the pro-unionization party and the party of the working man, and the republican party is for those rich northerners"?


I have some family members who still live in some quite, let's just say, "rural/backwoods" parts of Kentucky, who have some "not so nice things" to say about Gay people, Black people, Jewish people, etc... but still vote democrat because they're part of various unions, or are on forms of social safety nets, and the family mentality has always been "democrats are good for the poor, republicans are good for the rich".

The idea that they're somehow a "better ally" to those groups than a New England republican, simply because they're voting for the guy with a (D) after his name...at best...can be regarded as "incidental support" of those communities.

To me, a pro-gay republican who says "I wish there was a pro-gay republican to vote for" is better than an anti-gay person who says "I don't like those kids of people, but I'm voting democrat because my railroad union delegate said it'll be better for my pension"

 

[RocksInMyHead]

To me, a pro-gay republican who says "I wish there was a pro-gay republican to vote for" is better than an anti-gay person who says "I don't like those kids of people, but I'm voting democrat because my railroad union delegate said it'll be better for my pension"

Ultimately, I feel like the human element takes priority over the material. Voting in favor of your own material interests at the expense of the human interests of others is the height of selfishness, in my opinion.

 

[Belk]

How I tend to look at it...

In terms of "liberal vs. conservative", in the commonly used contexts in US political conversation...

You have the social and the economic.

On the social side, you have things like
Gay Marriage
Abortion
Drugs
Immigration
Guns

Economically, you have things like
Healthcare
Education
Tax Policy
Social Safety Nets

On all of those things except for maybe one or two, the right has moved left...just not as fast or as far as the left has on some of those issues.

So if you take far-right person today, they might be further apart on the spectrum than a far-left person when you compare that to how far apart the parties may have been in 1995.

But I see that as more of a symptom of the left moving left more quickly than they have in past 20 year time windows.

If you look at the difference between a liberal in 1975 and a liberal in 1995, you won't see nearly as a stark of a contrast as if you compared a liberal from 2005 to a liberal in 2020.


So it could just be a matter of perspectives.

If through the recent past, the right and left gradually drifted more left step for step, then all of the sudden you have a 20 year time period where for every step the right moves left, the left moves 2 steps, it's going to create the perception that "the right is moving further right" from the perspective of someone who'd be considered "pretty far left" on the spectrum.


I attribute a lot of that to the fact that some folks on the left, particularly younger folks, are expecting social change on a variety of issues at an unheard of pace when compared to the rest of US history.

Changing the social attitudes on just about any topic is going to take time, but it does typically trend in the direction of social justice, as you noted.

When explaining this, I often compare & contrast the timelines and expectations between the gay rights movement and trans rights movement.

The fight for gay marriage rights started in 1970. It wasn't until around 1990 when the first local domestic partnership was recognized...it would be another decade until a state level entity recognized a civil union, then another few years until a state recognized a full fledged "marriage", then it would be 2015 when SCOTUS made their official landmark ruling.

45 years it took...but it did eventually happen.

There seems to be this expectation today, that any social justice issue that isn't fully addressed through swift radical change 2 months after it being identified, is totally unacceptable, and that anyone standing in the way should be declared "the enemy of freedom"

But here is the thing. The spectrum moves as time progresses. This is known phenomenon where society slowly progresses as new ideas are embraced by the younger generations. We can look historically and watch this process take place on multiple different areas. For example we can look at the attitudes towards marriage as an institution and see that it shifts from a means of political alliance to an idealized vision of modern feelings and connection.

That this process happens does not speak to the relative positions of the Left/Right dichotomy. To judge that I think you would need to look at the positions relative to other positions in the same time frame.

 

[Kentonio]

When explaining this, I often compare & contrast the timelines and expectations between the gay rights movement and trans rights movement.

The fight for gay marriage rights started in 1970. It wasn't until around 1990 when the first local domestic partnership was recognized...it would be another decade until a state level entity recognized a civil union, then another few years until a state recognized a full fledged "marriage", then it would be 2015 when SCOTUS made their official landmark ruling.

45 years it took...but it did eventually happen.

There seems to be this expectation today, that any social justice issue that isn't fully addressed through swift radical change 2 months after it being identified, is totally unacceptable, and that anyone standing in the way should be declared "the enemy of freedom"

You may be right, but that also means that gay people who were young adults back in the 70's had to wait until they were elderly before finally seeing their rights recognized. Is that acceptable? Does that protect their freedom, or should we care more about the hurt feelings of people who weren't being discriminated against but just didn't like the idea of two men being together?

Obviously I'm playing devils advocate here a bit because your point is true about the rate of change massively increasing, but that's also true about most aspects of life now. The technological advancement curve is exponential and we're right at the point where it rockets upwards. Look at the world 50 years ago and its not just social issues that were a lot different, the world was basically unrecognizable compared to today. Very few computers, no internet, air travel still fairly rare for most people, much less food variety and much more domestically sources, basically wherever you look things have shot forward at a pace far beyond anything in human history.

I think that's why we're seeing the Trump movement now (and the Tea Party that preceded it). The rate of change is scaring the heck out of people, and they're clutching to an idealized (to them) version of the world that has already disappeared.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

But here is the thing. The spectrum moves as time progresses. This is known phenomenon where society slowly progresses as new ideas are embraced by the younger generations. We can look historically and watch this process take place on multiple different areas. For example we can look at the attitudes towards marriage as an institution and see that it shifts from a means of political alliance to an idealized vision of modern feelings and connection.

That this process happens does not speak to the relative positions of the Left/Right dichotomy. To judge that I think you would need to look at the positions relative to other positions in the same time frame.

Sure, you can't spell "progressive" without "progress"...so things trend in that direction over time...

But the rate at which it's changing on one side (and the expectation that the other side should have to move at the same pace) has jumped up a notch.

Like I made reference to before, if you look at the difference between a democrat in 1990 and compared them to a democrat in 2005, you'd notice a shift left, but not do the degree if you compared a democrat from 2005 to one from 2020.

An example of something that highlights that is the increasing number of far-left democrats who are challenging center-left democratic incumbents for the safe/established seats in congress with the reasoning "they're not progressive enough"...and people like Bernie and AOC appear to be leading that charge for that movement and encouraging it.

While that's not a "problem", there are primary challenges, it's part of the system, if people want to vote that way, that's up to them.

But when a significant enough amount of voters vote for an Ayanna Pressley, AOC, Cori Bush, etc... over well-respected and well-established democrats simply because "we want the big changes and we don't wanna wait", that's an indicator.


Perhaps some of it is due to virulent opposition to Trump (which I can understand), perhaps some of it is do the "modern age mentality"...where people have been accustomed to not have to wait for anything. "I should be able to click a button and it should be here in 2 business days"

Some of the things they're talking about are things that not even more progressive nations were able to get in place in the timeframes they seem to be expecting.

UBI is one that I hear a lot of those types of candidates talking about... Finland has it...but it certainly didn't happen in a timespan of 6 months from proposal to implementation, and it certainly didn't happen by "yelling louder" at people who opposed it at the time.

And if you look at the NHS in the UK, that certainly wasn't a "1 year implementation plan" by any stretch of the imagination. It was a phased in approach that started back in 1930, and wasn't fully implemented until 18 years later. Anyone with some expectation that any presidential candidate is going to be able to make that happen in 4 years (or even 8 years) needs to revise their expectations.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Ultimately, I feel like the human element takes priority over the material. Voting in favor of your own material interests at the expense of the human interests of others is the height of selfishness, in my opinion.

I don't think it's as black and white as that.

A person running a small to medium sized business may be very accepting and receptive to gay rights, but if a democrat is going to impose some tax/regulation/etc... that's going to threaten their entire livelihood (and thus, ability to feed their kids), they're not going to be simply looking at it as "human interests vs. material interests".

There maybe some who do...

But, if someone presented a father of 3 with the two choices of:
A) Vote for candidate A, your business goes under, you'll have a hard time earning for your family...but the gay couple who you're friends with down the street will be able to get married
or...
B) Your livelihood remains in tact, but that couple down the street may not be able to get married


That's not going to be a "easy" or "cut & dry" decision for a lot of folks.

Is someone selfish for not wanting to lose their career that they've worked long and hard to establish?

Hypothetically...
If there were a candidate running tomorrow, that had all of the same social values that I embrace, but also wanted to regulate software development out of business (meaning, I'm trying to go start from scratch with a new career at age 37 with no skills in any other field that will allow me to earn what I earn today)...I can't say that I'd vote for that person.

 

[Belk]

Sure, you can't spell "progressive" without "progress"...so things trend in that direction over time...

But the rate at which it's changing on one side (and the expectation that the other side should have to move at the same pace) has jumped up a notch.

Like I made reference to before, if you look at the difference between a democrat in 1990 and compared them to a democrat in 2005, you'd notice a shift left, but not do the degree if you compared a democrat from 2005 to one from 2020.

An example of something that highlights that is the increasing number of far-left democrats who are challenging center-left democratic incumbents for the safe/established seats in congress with the reasoning "they're not progressive enough"...and people like Bernie and AOC appear to be leading that charge for that movement and encouraging it.

While that's not a "problem", there are primary challenges, it's part of the system, if people want to vote that way, that's up to them.

But when a significant enough amount of voters vote for an Ayanna Pressley, AOC, Cori Bush, etc... over well-respected and well-established democrats simply because "we want the big changes and we don't wanna wait", that's an indicator.


Perhaps some of it is due to virulent opposition to Trump (which I can understand), perhaps some of it is do the "modern age mentality"...where people have been accustomed to not have to wait for anything. "I should be able to click a button and it should be here in 2 business days"

Some of the things they're talking about are things that not even more progressive nations were able to get in place in the timeframes they seem to be expecting.

UBI is one that I hear a lot of those types of candidates talking about... Finland has it...but it certainly didn't happen in a timespan of 6 months from proposal to implementation, and it certainly didn't happen by "yelling louder" at people who opposed it at the time.

And if you look at the NHS in the UK, that certainly wasn't a "1 year implementation plan" by any stretch of the imagination. It was a phased in approach that started back in 1930, and wasn't fully implemented until 18 years later. Anyone with some expectation that any presidential candidate is going to be able to make that happen in 4 years (or even 8 years) needs to revise their expectations.

But is it moving that quickly? What metric do we use to judge this? Don't get me wrong it is entirely possible you are right but I am suspicious enough of my own perceptions to know that we need a standardized model to measure it. Simply claiming look at the vs now is entirely subjective. Hence why I am curious how the professionals view it.

 

[Dryskale]

1,000,000 people filed for unemployment during the same time 1,800,000 jobs were created.

That is why the unemployment rate went DOWN

What kind of jobs were created?

 

[Dryskale]

Obama, the worst economic recovery in history, yes I am certain everyone would welcome that again.

I'm more concerned about what caused that collapse in the first place. The unregulated and culpability of firms that dealt with high risk investments that all crashed when the check came due and resulted in the biggest recession since the great depression.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

But is it moving that quickly? What metric do we use to judge this? Don't get me wrong it is entirely possible you are right but I am suspicious enough of my own perceptions to know that we need a standardized model to measure it. Simply claiming look at the vs now is entirely subjective. Hence why I am curious how the professionals view it.

I don't know if the policies have manifested themselves into actual law, but the expectation for faster moves is certainly there.

If we rewound the clock back 20 years, do you think you'd hear any significant number on the left (much less 48% of the democratic party) wanting to "defund the police" as a response to instances of police misconduct?

There have been movements for quite some time to get rid of confederate monuments (for good reason) in place for years, that started happening. The process took time. That mission was accomplished...it wasn't two weeks later, and they're looking to tear down statues of Lincoln, Washington, etc... and it wasn't done through the same process, instead of working within the system to accomplish that goal, it became "let's just get a group together, meet up, and tear them down ourselves tomorrow night".

Congresswomen calling for "Boycott work unless we get what we want"

Digging back through 10 year old social media posts to get someone cancelled who said something that doesn't line up with current 2020 progressive values...


These are all fairly new approaches to "problem solving" that weren't being pursued in times past.

"Get rid of free speech if it doesn't conform to our mission" is a big one.

While there is hateful speech, counterproductive speech, etc... Free speech used to be a staple of the left.

There was a time when Brown University hosted a speaker by the name of George Lincoln Rockwell...an absolute scumbag who was the head of the American Nazi Party. But they still went to listen to his speech (and boo him...as they should), but they at least respected the forum of free speech.

Fast forward, you have students on college campuses literally starting riots and threatening violence to stop people like Bill Maher and Ben Shapiro from speaking. (and Bill's pretty far left IMO)...and regardless of how anyone feels about those two, I think everyone can agree they're not "Leader of a Nazi Party" bad. Even Jerry Seinfeld said he won't do anymore shows on college campuses now because "it's not worth the risk"

When someone as non-threatening, and probably one of the more "PG" comics who just does basic observational humor says "it's impossible to make sure you don't cross the line when the line is always moving", that's quite telling...

 

[RocksInMyHead]

A person running a small to medium sized business may be very accepting and receptive to gay rights, but if a democrat is going to impose some tax/regulation/etc... that's going to threaten their entire livelihood (and thus, ability to feed their kids), they're not going to be simply looking at it as "human interests vs. material interests".

It's always possible to come up with a hypothetical exception to just about any rule. However, this isn't really a realistic situation that you're describing. The only industry that I know of that any significant number of Democrats are trying to eliminate is coal, which is entirely dominated by massive corporations (there are no small, independent coal mines), and all plans that I've seen discussed include parallel retraining for employees in green technologies. It's unlikely that the situation you describe applies to any significant number of people.