Americans Are...More Closely Aligned With Progressive Ideas Than at Any Time in Memory

[laststeamtrain]

The Results Are In: Americans Are Now More Closely Aligned With Progressive Ideas Than at Any Time in Memory
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
Posted on May 30, 2009, Printed on May 30, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/140307/

On issue after substantive issue, significant majorities of Americans favor progressive solutions to the nation's problems and reject the right's worldview. That's true whether the issue at hand is taxes, war and peace, the role of government in the economy, health care, and on and on.

Yet the idea that America is a "center-right" nation persists; Republican and conservative activists repeat the assertion ad nauseum -- as it's in their interest to do -- and most of the political press corps swallows it whole.

The idea is like a zombie -- you can bludgeon it, burn it or get Dick Cheney to shoot it in the face, but it keeps coming -- it will not die.

The persistence of the center-right narrative, even in the face of piles of evidence suggesting it's little more than a myth, has very real consequences on our political discourse.

Aside from coloring the way the media covers -- and the public views -- the vital issues of the day, it impacts progressive activists, who even when they have the wind at their backs often feel the need to move slowly, cautiously and in ways that will minimize direct confrontation with the conservative movement.

Progressives have long begun the legislative process in the middle and then moved to the center-right, when the reality is that the country is looking for bold changes, not incremental tinkering.


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http://www.alternet.org/politics/140307/the_results_are_in%3A_americans_are_now_more_closely_aligned_with_progressive_ideas_than_at_any_time_in_memory/

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It's TV that's selling the 'center-right' snake oil.

Stop watching or at least stop believing what the clowns say. Just look at the pictures, you don't have to listen to them or believe them.

[cali]

1. America as a whole, is both right and left

As a whole we believe in creationism over following the science of evolution. We don't want more taxes. We support single payer. We support torture "under certain circumstances", etc, etc. In short, we're a mess of conflicting and paradoxical beliefs.

[laststeamtrain]

2. I agree. Some people are "a mess of conflicting and paradoxical beliefs".

I'm reading at DU aren't I?

:sarcasm:

[midnight]

3. Our news outlets have become the Madison Fifth ave. of

brainwashing.