The pollster Morning Consult recently released a survey that showed more Americans are abandoning liberalism.
But according to Morning Consult, they’re not becoming conservatives. It’s really not the head-scratcher they want you to think it is.
“The left is losing the battle for the minds of the American electorate, Morning Consult research shows, with voters decreasingly identifying as liberal in recent years,” the pollster reported.
The findings were based on research of nearly 9 million voters over the past five years.
Morning Consult noted that the ratio of those who claimed to be “very liberal,” “liberal” or “somewhat liberal” dropped from 34 percent to 27 percent over the past five years.
“The decline in liberal self-identification has not led to a major increase in conservative alignment, the most prominent ideology in U.S. politics,” the analysis continued. “The data paints a crisp picture of asymmetrical polarization, as Democratic voters drifted toward the middle and Republican voters shifted further to the right.”
So, you see, many left-wingers moved to the center, and many conservatives shifted even further right – but the country is not moving to the right.
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Except Morning Consult’s own data indicates that its claim about the starboard shift of the electorate is not true.
The combined total of those who report themselves as “very conservative,” “conservative,” or “slightly conservative” went from 38 percent at the beginning of the Donald Trump administration to 39 percent day. It’s a small increase, but still an increase.
In fact, one of the biggest jumps recorded by Morning Consult was among those who self-describe as “very conservative.” Their portion rose from 11 percent in 2017 to 14 percent today.
Only “moderates” increased more, climbing four points.
Ironically, the side that routinely and loudly criticizes the right as “white supremacists” is hemorrhaging minority voters.
The number of black Americans who identify as liberal – covering everything from slightly to very – fell from 54 percent in 2017 to 32 percent today.
The plunge was almost as large among Hispanics, falling from 55 percent to 37 percent over that time.
“Among each age group,” Morning Consult reported, “Black and Hispanic voters were more likely to move away from the ideological left than white voters.”
Moreover, the pollster added, “the share of Black Republicans identifying with the right increased from 37% to 58%, alongside a similarly sized increase among Hispanic Republicans, from 48% to 66%.”
In one section, Morning Consult tried to tell readers not to believe their lying eyes.
“Even as Democratic voters drift toward the middle, the data shows that the Republican Party’s adherents are shifting further to the right — and it’s happening quickly,” the pollster reported. “Over the same time period in which the share of Democrats identifying as liberal dropped from 60% to 55%, the share of Republicans who said they were conservative increased from 70% to 77%. What’s more, Republican voters (32%) are far more likely to identify as ‘very conservative’ than Democrats (19%) are to say they’re ‘very liberal.’”
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So the number of Republicans who are conservative is increasing, while the number of Democrats claiming to be liberal is dropping. And Morning Consult also noted that “conservative alignment” is “the most prominent ideology in U.S. politics.”
Yet the country’s not moving to the right. Sure.
Despite the spin Morning Consult tried to put on its own analysis, PJ Media columnist Athena Thorne offered her take:
“The whole country is moving in a rightward direction,” she said in summing up the findings. “My takeaway is that the Democrat party is becoming unrecognizable even to its own adherents.”
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