Monday, June 15, 2009

The Current Ideological Landscape in America

A new Gallup poll released today surveys the current ideological landscape in America. According to the poll, 40% of Americans consider themselves conservative, 35% moderate, and 21% liberal. This percentage of self-identified conservatives has increased since last year, while those liberals decreased marginally. When asked about political parties, reinforcing the Democratic Big Tent meme, Gallup noted:
There is an important distinction in the respective ideological compositions of the Republican and Democratic Parties. While a solid majority of Republicans are on the same page -- 73% call themselves conservative -- Democrats are more of a mixture. The major division among Democrats is between self-defined moderates (40%) and liberals (38%). However, an additional 22% of Democrats consider themselves conservative, much higher than the 3% of Republicans identifying as liberal.
Their data shows that 36% self-identify as Democrats, 28% Republicans, and 27% Independents (who lean 51% Democratic, 39% Republican, and 9% purely independent).

In a gender breakdown, women are more likely to be liberal and moderate, less likely to be conservative compared to men. And, among the age groups, older generations skew heavily conservative, but in the youngest age group (18-29), Americans are split evenly between conservatism and liberalism.

Finally, according to the Gallup, America is slightly more polarized today then during the 1990's with increases in both the conservative and liberal bases and shrinking among moderates at large.

Anybody find any of this surprising?

7 comments:

Brenda Bowers said...

I expect the country to go heavily Republican and new faces in 2010 after this perhaps lethal dose of liberalism.

A comment was made to me about Obamanation, "How much damage can he do in four years?"
My answer was "a lot" but even I could not imagine the speed at which he would move and my answer of "a lot" was naive. BB

Matt F. said...

What do you think wouldn't have been naive? A whole lot? I love it. 8 years of disastrous economic policies from a Republican president nearly destroy the country and its not completely fixed in 6 months and you guys are going crazy. Seriously, Obama will be in power for a while, pace yourself.

Anonymous said...

BHO will be the down fall of the Democratic party his lies have been so far stretched from the campaign trail to the White House. Even Democrats are starting to realize this, only the far left are still holding on. I would have loved for BHO'S ideas to have worked but quess what it didn't. Throwing money at a problem has never been the answer im not sure why anyone thought this stimulus was going to work the only thing it has changed is the national debt. Joe Biden made the comment that nobody knew that the stimulus package wasn't going to work. I said before it was ever passed that when it was said and done the only thing that the stimulus was going to stimulate was the national debt. Alot of top Republicans also warned congress and the senate of the mistake they were making. Please do not be so naive to think you won't get that thrown back in your face in the upcoming elections . BHO is making Republicans look better everyday he is in office.

A Faithful Reader said...

I agree with Matt, it will take longer than six months to recover from the great destruction to our society that was caused by the Former administration. It will take years to re-establish ourselves as a moral authority in the world, and years more for our economy to recover from the Bush mis-management.

We gave our former President time to get it right -- he never did. Give a truly gifted leader a chance to get us right again. Yes we can.

Anonymous said...

NO HE CANT

Anonymous said...

He is not a leader, he is just a community organizer not a leader

Matt F. said...

I think once you are the President you are actually a leader. You could maybe say that he wasn't a leader when he was community organizing. You would probably be wrong, but you could say it. But now, I am pretty sure he is a leader. Of the country. Genius.