Folks on the left had fun on Tuesday night posting images on Twitter of the results of polling by Fox News Channel. Most Americans, the survey found, are decidedly liberal on a host of issues.
Changing to a government-run health care plan: 39% strongly favor; 33% somewhat favor; 14% somewhat oppose; 15% strongly oppose.
Supreme Court action on Roe v. Wade: 71% leave as is; 29% overturn it.
U.S. gun laws should be: 55% more strict; 12% less strict; 33% kept as is.
What should happen to illegal immigrants in the U.S.? 72% pathway to citizenship; 28% deportation.
Increasing government spending on green & renewable energy: 37% strongly favor; 33% somewhat favor; 16% somewhat oppose; 15% strongly oppose.
Donald Trump’s approach to Russia: 4% too tough; 58% not tough enough; 38% about right.
And so on. What Fox (and viewers) discovered is a phenomenon that’s goes back decades. Here’s how Matthew Grossmann and David A. Hopkins described it in Asymmetric Politics:
The American electorate consistently holds collectively left-of-center views on most policy issues even as it leans to the right on more general measures of ideology—as Lloyd A. Free and Hadley Cantril observed nearly five decades ago, the public is simultaneously operationally liberal and symbolically conservative.
Operationally liberal: when asked their opinions about political issues, majorities consistently take the liberal side (as did the folks FNC polled). In other words, when confronted with specific issues, they approve of public policies that actively address or remedy the situation (and they do so even if, in the abstract, they embrace small government or rugged individualism — symbolically conservative positions).
Symbolically conservative: when asked to characterize their ideology or philosophical outlook, more Americans say they are ‘Conservative’ than ‘Liberal’ — that’s how they view themselves. They embrace traditional American values, which the GOP has branded as its own (and runs with year after year, rather than emphasizing its unpopular policies).
Huge numbers of Republican voters and Trump supporters are operationally liberal and symbolically conservative. They vote for the party that opposes their views and interests. There’s nothing new here. It’s the starting point of Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter with Kansas?
Unfortunately for Democrats, adopting positions on a range of issues that most Americans are in agreement with hardly guarantees support at the polls. As Grossmann and Hopkins explain: the pendulum swings back and forth (with Democrats winning one cycle, Republicans another) with an electorate that sometimes makes a decision based on specific Democratic issues (in 2018 healthcare was critical), sometimes based on abstract Republican messaging (often, as negative polarization has increased, in broad strokes that demean their opponents: socialists, radicals, elitists).
The level of negative partisanship is so high now, it is harder than ever to break through to the other side to make ones case. That’s a huge problem for the Democratic Party, which Alex Pareene addresses with a question, ‘What if it barely matters what Democrats “talk about” or “campaign on”?‘ His answer isn’t encouraging:
It seems possible … that voters no longer believe that the Democratic Party represents a coalition that includes the working class, and that even if the party puts forward Democratic candidates who support pro-worker policy, it simply will not suffice to reach or convince voters.
It’s inevitable that the FNC mix of propaganda and actual news will clash from time to time. While amusing, that’s not really a problem for the network. What Tuesday night’s polling results show, however, is something that Democrats must grapple with, if the party is ever to regain the White House while enjoying majorities in both houses of Congress. With such a closely divided nation, a constitutional structure that advantages vast stretches of land rather than people, and an opposition party bent on obstruction and paralysis, Democrats have to figure out how to gain the support of folks from red states, who would actually benefit from Democratic policies.