The Right has been proven right, again.
When conservatives began warning their fellow citizens about liberal takeover of American institutions, like schools, the media, and the courts, both Democrats and Republicans laughed it off. The idea that the sinister left was planning a wholescale, long-term coup against America’s greatest values wasn’t taken seriously. Rising leftist ideologies at colleges and universities was ignored. Communist propaganda in schools was shrugged off.
It’s no longer possible to ignore. The conservatives were right, and we should have heeded the warning.
Gallup’s recent poll has some disturbing numbers about America’s ideological shift. While no one can deny the Obama years did nearly irreparable damage to the country, Trump’s election looked like a sign that all was well – after all, with such a victory, could anyone deny that the United States was tired of half-baked, pseudo-intellectual liberalism? Or it’s continued failure as both an ideology, and as policy?
Well, apparently not. It looks like the worst is ahead of us.
Gallup’s poll contains two noteworthy items: one, the gap between the number of conservatives and liberals in the country is shrinking very quickly; and two, the shrinkage is due to liberal extremists.
Per the first point, the danger is obvious – if we don’t outnumber the crazies, they can vote in whoever they want. That, in itself, should be enough to worry about. But it’s the second point that’s the scariest. Gallup is clear: “Most of the long-term change in Americans’ political views…can be explained by one overarching factor — an increasing likelihood of Democrats (including independents who lean Democratic) to self-identify as liberal. Democratic liberal identification has increased by about one percentage point each year, from 30% in 2001 to 44% in 2016. As a result, liberalism now ranks as the top ideological group among Democrats.”
Meanwhile, there has been an eight-point decline since 2001 in the percentage of Democrats identifying as conservative and a six-point decline in the percentage of Democrats who are moderate.”
Gallup makes it clearer a few paragraphs later: “However, the liberal percentage has been growing, mainly at the expense of moderates.”
Recap, just so we’re clear: most Democrats used to identify themselves as moderate. The moderates are gone, replaced by the extremists. And that is the reason for the shrinking gap between conservatives and liberals in the United States.
If you need to read that again, just to let it sink in, please go ahead.
It will be easy, as liberals become more powerful, for liberal politicians to try to outdo the damage of the Obama years. And it will be just as important for Trump supporters to stop them.
This time, we should heed the warning.
Source: Gallup
