Politics: Is America a center-right country?

last updated 8 January 2015

Conservatives may be down, said Rod Dreher in Realclearpolitics.com, but they’re not out. “America remains largely a center-right country, which means there are opportunities for new iterations of conservatism.” Barack Obama understands this, which is why, even though he’s a liberal, “he did not campaign as one and is too smart to govern as one.” Paradoxically, last week’s election results confirmed the nation’s center-right tilt, said Rich Lowry in The Washington Post. In the worst possible environment for Republicans, “the ideological composition of the election was essentially unchanged from 2004.” In exit polls, only 22 percent of voters identified themselves as liberals, while 34 percent said they were conservatives and 44 percent considered themselves moderates.

Then why did voters just give Obama a mandate? said E.J. Dionne in The Washington Post. All this talk of “a center-right country” is just the latest “gimmick” from conservatives, who are hoping to scare Obama away from making fundamental changes in health care, the environment, taxes, regulation, and foreign policy. He should ignore these scare tactics, because America is now a center-left nation, said John Judis in The New Republic. This year’s election marked a fundamental “realignment,” as the Republican base of older blue-collar and rural whites shrank to a minority. The Democrats’ new majority is composed of college-educated professionals; working and single women; blacks, Hispanics, and Asians; and people under 30. Most of these voters live in sprawling, urban-suburban metropolitan areas and work for companies that produce ideas and services, rather than material goods. They’re optimistic and not frightened by change. With smart policies, Obama can secure this growing majority. The only question is whether it will be short-term, like Ronald Reagan’s realignment in 1980, or more “durable,” like those initiated by William McKinley in 1896 and Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932.

It’s too soon to tell, said Steven M. Warshawsky in American Thinker. In fact, the nation is so ideologically muddled it’s hard even to know what Obama’s victory means. In theory, voters call themselves “conservative” or “moderate,” yet in practice they support taxing people wealthier than themselves, government-subsidized health care, and other handouts. True conservatism is about economic and political freedom, and that means “truly limited government.” We must define what “conservatism” means before we can figure out where “the ideological balance lies” in American politics—and who truly controls the center.