| Ideology vs. Pragmatic Spending Priorities
In 1964, Gallup conducted an extensive poll designed by political analysts Lloyd Free and Hadley Cantril, the results of which they published three years later in The Political Beliefs of Americans: A Study of Public Opinion. One of their most basic findings was that they could identify three different political spectra. One was based on simple self-identification. The second was based on what they considered ideological questions, mostly having to do with the role of the federal government and individual initiative. The third was what they called an "operational" spectrum, which asked about support for specific government programs or activities.
They discovered that a large number of ideological moderates--and even a clear plurality of ideological conservatives--qualified as ideological liberals:
Although the the questions Sides selected are not the same as the ones that Free and Cantril asked, they are more similar to them than they are to the sorts of specific operational questions which formed the basis of the operational spectrum. Here's Free and Cantril:
Ideological Spectrum (Statements presented with respondents asked to agree or disagree): - The Federal Government is interfering too much in state and local matters.
- The government has gone too far in regulating business and interfering with the free enterprise system.
- Social problems here in this country could be solved more effectively if the government would only keep its hands off and let people in local communities handle their own problems in their own ways.
- Generally speaking, any able-bodied person who really wants to work in this country can find a job and earn a living.
- We should rely more in individual initiative and ability and not so much on governmental welfare programs.
And here's the questisons Sides drew on from the ANES:
- "Some people feel that the government in Washington should see to it that every person has a job and a good standard of living...Others think the government should just let each person get ahead on his/her own. Where would you place yourself on this scale, or haven't you thought much about this?"
- "Some people think the government should provide fewer services, even in areas such as health and education, in order to reduce spending. Other people feel that it is important for the government to provide many more services even if it means an increase in spending. Where would you place yourself on this scale, or haven't you thought much about this?"
- "Some people feel there should be a government insurance plan which would cover all medical and hospital expenses for everyone. Others feel that medical expenses should be paid by individuals, and through private insurance plans like Blue Cross other company paid plans. Where would you place yourself on this scale, or haven't you thought much about this?"
Proof that these questions are relatively similar in measuring an ideological spectrum comes from comparing the basically symmetrical curve that Sides comes up with against the following curve that measures net support for seven national spending items--including the vastly unpopular category of "welfare", which is far more unpopular than the more generic question of spending money on the poor:
In addition to welfare, the questions asked about support for spending on the nations health, environment, education, social security and the problems of the big cities, and blacks blacks. Thus, three of the items concern spending on groups strongly identified with the Democratic Party, and frequently demonized by the right, while four are less subject to ideological attack.
Here's a table of the underlying data, with cumulative totals that make it possible to quickly compare left and right in terms of how many people are more extreme than any given position:
Thus, anyone who favors cutting two or more spending programs is in the company of 6.3% of the population--just slightly more than the 5.5% who favor increasing all 7. Anyone in favor of cutting one or more programs is in the company of just 10.8% of the public--less than the 13.8% who favor increased spending on 6 programs net.
These are not people who favor cutting welfare, since cutting one program and increasing six others would leave one measured as increasing five programs net.
I don't know about Michelle Malkin, but Grover Norquist is out there with 0.3% of the public, less than 1/10 of the number who support increasing spending on all seven programs. I'd say that's pretty extreme.
Beyond Spending Priorities: Abortion
Another dimension of ideology is captured by positions on abortion. In fact, the General Social Survey asks seven questions that break down neatly into to two subscales, one (AbThreat) dealing with abortion under some threat of harm--to the life or health of the number, with a risk of serious birth defect, or as a result of rape--and another (AbAutonomy) dealing with abortion in the context of choosing to control one's life--if a woman is not married, if she poor and can't afford more children, if she's married, but wants no more children, or for any reason whatsoever. Positions on the second scale are sharply split, but the first scale skews heavily pro-choice. Combining them together into a single scale, we get a spectrum that looks like this:
Thinking of people appearing in the media, it's clear that the extreme anti-abortion position, which makes no exceptions whatsoever, is far more extreme in terms of public support than the extreme pro-choice position.
Here again are the underlying numbers:
Thus, in terms of popular support, one who supports abortions in three cases, but no more (presumably all of the AbThreat cases) falls rooughly half way in between one who supports abortions in five or six cases.
Combining Scales
As mentioned above, social and economic liberalism are not the same things. One cannot simply count support for a spending priority as equivalent to support for abortion in a given situation. So what I'm about to do here is not to make a substantive argument in and of itself, but simply to make a hueristic argument, showing what would happen if one were to try to create a scale in this manner. Again, the result would be a tremendous skewing of the population to the left:
Looking at the underlying figures we can confirm what's apparent directly from the chart above: the "center" of the scale has far fewer people to the right of it than to the left:
Indeed, the midpoint, which is 10 1/2, has 16.4% to the right of it, and 83.7% to the left. One has to go four positions farther left--to 14 1/2, before one gets approximately equal numbers on both sides--51.7% more conservative, and 48.x% more liberal.
So What's It All Mean?
As I said at the beginning of the previous section, it was only an illustrative argument, because you can't simply add these two scales together. But it is properly illustrative because of the fact that Americans skew to the left on such a wide range of issues--roughly two-thirds of the questions tracked over several decades, as James A. Stimson noted in Public Opinion In America: Moods, Cycles, And Swings, Second Edition. This is virtually the mirror image of the advantage in self-identification that conservatives enjoy--while, as indicated by the first chart, from John Sides--broad ideological questions tend to split the difference between the two.
So which is correct?
Answer---all of them, and none.
If people are content to have a politics based on image and identity, without giving a rats ass about actual policies, then yes, indeed, we are living in a center-right nation. If people are primarily concerned with broad platitudes and abstract principles, then welcome to Barack Obama's center-dominated bipartisan world. But if people actually want something done, well, then, welcome to progressive America, because that's what people want when it comes down to brass tacks.
There is is nothing new in this insight. Students of politics have long known that salience is all. It's true not only about issues, hence the term "issue salience", but also about issues vs. image. For the past 40 years or so, conservatives and Republicans have been absolutely clear about this, while liberals and Democrats have been mostly clueless.
Take Paul Krugman's question that started this whole diary off. What defines Michelle Malkin's extremism is not her position on the issues--it's her take no prisoners attitude toward political discourse as war, and her total disregard for the truth, except for when it can get her into trouble. This is what she shares in common with an entire legion of similar figures on the right. It's not a question of whether Michael Moore or some other figure on the left is equally far from the center. Such figures simply do not lie pervasively and consistently the way figures like Malkin do.
There are many reasons for this, so I'll just mention one I haven't focused on for a while: lies are simple, truth is complicated. If you want to get your point across quickly, and vividly, so that people remember it, then just make it up.
Think about it. How much time does it take to tell someone that Obama's health care reform will kill grandma? Versus how much time does it take to refute that lie?
So long as there are no consequences for lying, then lying will be favored all the time, simply because of this strategic advantage, if for no other reasons.
So, instead of Krugman's original question, we might better ask, "is there anyone on the left who lies as repeatedly as Malkin does who would be invited onto a weekend TV show?"
And this is the sort of analysis the raw material for which Media Matters does on a regular ongoing basis.
Now, of course, Malkin does much, much more than simply lie. She demonizes, advocates for mass incarceration of political undesirables, and incites followers towards violence. But simply examining media figures for their propensities to lie is a very good first cut baseline to start judging them on. Truth be told, it's very, very hard to do the rest of the nasty stuff that Malkin does if you're not a habitual liar first. |
