Lawrence O'Donnell keeps going on TV and arguing that liberals cost Dems the election, and that Dems need to move even further rightward because most Americans just aren't into liberalism. To be clear, he's claiming not that liberalism is wrong -- he actually claims to be a socialist -- but that Dems need to come to grips with the reality known as public opinion. For evidence, he cites exit polling that showing that only 20 percent of voters called themselves "liberal." Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, and bullshit.
I don't care about O'Donnell; he's a mainstream pundit who says things that mainstream pundits say (although I'm looking forward to his advocating socialist positions on MSNBC). What disturbs me is that many activist liberals here and elsewhere share his view. I don't get it. Why would people insist, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that their views are unpopular?
Before dumping data on you, let me first address the issue of self-identification. It's true that a relatively small segment of Americans call themselves liberal. The most obvious reason is that conservatives have turned liberalism into a profanity at the same that liberals (not uncoincidentally) have tried to shake off the label. It's no surprise that people aren't eager to call themselves liberal.
More than that, though, most people don't think about the terms "liberal" and "conservative" in the same way that you and I do. (If they think about them at all.) The terms are too subjective to tell us anything about the ideological makeup of the country. Consider this poll from Gallup, which finds that 29 percent of blacks call themselves conservative and only 23 call themselves liberal. This could mean that lots of blacks see themselves as conservative on cultural issues. More likely, it means that for lots of blacks, "conservative" connotes "traditional." (The same poll found that 84 percent of blacks say religion is important in their daily lives.) What it doesn't mean is that only 23 percent of blacks, say, favor progressive taxation and oppose the war in Afghanistan, or that 29 percent of blacks share Sarah Palin's views.
Now, to the issues...
Let's start with the GOP's signature issue, taxes.
Fifty-three percent of Americans agree with Mr. Obama that the tax cuts for the wealthy should be allowed to expire, while 38 percent do not, according to the poll, conducted Sept. 10-14...Two of three Democrats think it is a good idea, and most independents (55 percent) agree.
And on taxing the rich generally:
Americans overwhelmingly want the wealthy to carry more of the burden of putting the government's fiscal house in order. Sixty-five percent say lawmakers should consider raising taxes on the rich back to where they were 10 years ago.
That last finding points to the country's spending priorities. Do Americans really care about the deficits? The polling is ambiguous, but there's no question that most Americans would prefer to deal with deficits in progressive ways.
Strong majorities support progressive solutions for addressing the federal deficit: 63 percent back lifting the Social Security cap on incomes higher than $107,000 a year; 64 percent would favor eliminating tax breaks for corporations that outsource jobs; 62 percent would support a tax on excessive Wall Street bank profits.
What they don't want to do is cut entitlement programs.
68 percent said they would oppose making major spending cuts in Social Security and Medicare to reduce the deficit...That included 61 percent of Republicans and 56 percent of independents.
And those numbers appear to be on the low end.
The poll, which was provided exclusively to HuffPost, finds that 85 percent of adults oppose cutting Social Security to reduce the deficit; 72 percent "strongly oppose" doing so.
So Americans' desire to protect the big entitlement programs is clear; but that desire extends to all other big social programs. Given a choice between "big government" and "small government," most Americans choose the latter. But when they're asked about specific programs...
On five domestic policy issues [protecting the environment, securing access to health care, reducing poverty, setting educational standards for public schools, regulating Wall Street financial institutions] majorities ranging from 67 to 84 percent wanted to see either the same or more federal government involvement in the issue. (In fact, on four of these issues outright majorities actually wanted to see more federal involvement.) Those wanting to see less or no involvement ranged from only 32 down to 16 percent.
More on regulation of Wall Street:
About two-thirds of Americans support stricter regulations on the way banks and other financial institutions conduct their business, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
That poll was taken before the Dems passed Wall Street regulation. It's no wonder that it's the only major bill they've passedthat's popular. That speaks to the overwhelming political potential of progressive economic populism. (They call it populism for a reason.) The numbershere are actually a little dated (2007). I'm confident that they're even more favorable to progressives now.
"Roughly three- quarters of the public (76%) believe there is too much power concentrated in the hands of a few big companies, a number which has varied very little over the past 20 years."
65 percent of the public, including 54 percent of Republicans, say corporate profits are too high.
Speaking of economic populism, there's no bigger political winner than fair trade.
A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows that 69 percent of Americans believe free trade agreements with other countries have cost jobs in the United States, while just 18 percent believe they have created jobs. A 53 percent majority—up from 46 percent three years ago and 30 percent in 1999—believes that trade agreements have hurt the nation overall.
And Dems are looking for bipartisanship? Here's your bipartisan issue.
While 65 percent of union members say free trade has hurt the U.S., so do 61 percent of Tea Party sympathizers.
Public opinion on health care is certainly no exception. Polls consistently find that a majority of Americans favor a government-run system (those that include the word "Medicare" tend to fare better.) Here's one such finding, from 2009:
59% say the government should provide national health insurance, including 49% who say such insurance should cover all medical problems.
And we all know that the public option is wildly popular.
72 percent of those questioned supported a government-administered insurance plan — something likeMedicare for those under 65 — that would compete for customers with private insurers. Twenty percent said they were opposed.
I've been singing this song for a long time, but the numbers on climate change surprised even me.
Sixty-five percent of poll respondents said they would support a bill that would cap greenhouse gas emissions. The same poll, conducted from July 29 to Aug. 1, found that 78 percent favor requiring utilities to produce more energy from renewable sources.
As for that issue that voters seem to forget about -- until, at some point, they don't, the War in Afghanistan? Polls, like this one, consistently find that between 55 and 60 percent of Americans oppose it.
A majority of Americans see no end in sight in Afghanistan, and nearly six in 10 oppose the nine-year-old war as President Barack Obama sends tens of thousands more troops to the fight, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll.
I scooped up these polls during a twenty-minute Google session. You could find polls with slightly different findings. What you couldn't find are polls showing that the progressive positions on these issues are unpopular. That's not to say that every progressive position is popular. On some cultural issues -- immigration, fighting terrorism (yes, that's a cultural issue), gay marriage, criminal justice, and school prayer -- the polling for progressives is at best ambiguous and at worst alarming. (Which is why the GOP and corporate power want elections to be about these issues.) But on the big-ticket issues that people care about the most, especially right now, progressive positions prevail.
Why, then, did a country where a strong majority agrees with Bernie Sanders just make John Boehner Speaker?
Because progressive positions threaten Power, which therefore does everything it can (which is a ton) to make sure that the will of the people isn't expressed at the ballot box (or, for that matter, in Congress).
Because most people don't vote on labels or ideology or policy prescriptions but on the conditions in their lives and in their communities.
Because a disproportionate number of the millions of non-voters are poor and therefore more likely to be liberal.
Because on several big issues, neither party is offering the progressive position.
We're supposed to admire pols who don't govern according to opinion polls, but it'd actually be excellent if at this point in time Dems did govern according to opinion polls. Over the last few decades, Dems have tried governing from the center and running against the right. They're tried triangulation and neo-liberalism and Third Wayism. Maybe they ought to try giving Americans what they want. It's called liberalism.
There might be legit reasons -- a conservative-leaning Congress, a hostile press -- why Dems can't pursue a progressive agenda, but public opinion isn't one of them. Maybe it's self-hatred that leads liberals to wrongly believe that their views are unpopular. Or maybe it's vanity, ignorance, or elitism. Maybe it's simply the sense the with all the problems in the country, Americans must be conservative. Whatever the reason, liberals need to stop buying into Lawrence O'Donnellism. You're not weird, liberals. Or special.
Next time you're sitting on the subway or at the lunch counter at your local diner, look at the person sitting next to you. Chances are, he or she has political views a lot like yours.