Study: "Center-Right Nation" Narrative Spiked Immediately After Election Day

OurFuture.org:

When I wrote my first column about the "center-right nation" and subsequently launched the "Center-Right Nation Watch" series on this blog I predicted that the news media would actually increase its usage of this term after Obama won. I did a Lexis-Nexis search of the term, and was the first to note the trend and make the prediction that "if Obama wins, expect more frantic talk from the fringe about how electing a black man billed as an Islamic Karl Marx obviously means our country is more conservative than ever."

Feeling like I was out on a limb (and remember, this was almost 2 weeks before a group of major progressive pundits belatedly started writing about the trend), I asked a friend out here in Denver who works with a company called Trendrr to officially track whether my prediction was right - and you can see from the results above, it was - more so than I ever expected.

Read the whole story: OurFuture.org

Comments

[FreedomAgain]

Completely rediculous how right-wingers believe that by stating the opposite of the truth, they think they can actually change the truth. Especially obvious after all their fear-mongering about how President Obama would be far more liberal than anyone in government. I certainly hope they were right the first time - that he will be extremely liberal.

[JimGroom]

Center right my lilly-white ass. Can someone explain just how a center-right country would elect a so-called most liberal black man? The country has been moving away from the right for several years now and all the evidence clearly indicates such a trend. Only the MSM in its cocoon would come up with such nonsense. As I recall the polls before the election indicated that over 80% flet the country was going in the wrong direction. That does not sound center-right to me, but I could be wrong.

[TheIndependenceParty]

In short, while the far right controlled the White House and Congress they din't care for anyone, ... but the far right!

"Center right" is just a hair shirt with silk lapels. In most countries, the far right is kept at bay, for being the ruination of political discourse. They are almost universally reviled. And so it is to be that way in America. There can be no "coalition" where there is no reasoning, ... as there can be none with the Reich.

Forty years in the wilderness. You know the drill. Get along now, ... don't look back or you will turned to a pillar of smoke, ... well, I'll leave those Bible stories to you all around your campfires at night. No, ... No Mitch and Rich, ... you guys get outta here now. I mean it, ... Boo, ...

It's like feeding squirrels. They don't know when to leave on the Right!

[9liberal]

Lets try this again...

I'm confused. During the whole campaign process, all I heard was how liberal Obama was....how the democrats elected the most liberal candidate in the senate to be our leader. They used the word liberal like it was a bad word. Like the word liberal was equivelant to a big mean scary monster who wants to get us all.
Now all of the sudden, the country is center right? How is this possible? Can someone please explain republican logic to me yet again???

[9liberal]

where did my comment go???

[9liberal]

Ok I'm confused. All I heard the whole campaign process was that Obama was the most liberal candidate the democrats have ever run. They used the word liberal as if it was a scary bad word...very threatning. Think back to EH on the view...she used the word liberal the same way you would use the word monster. And now, that Obama is President Elect (i love that) the nation is center right.....dude what???????
Can someone please explain the republican logic to me yet again!!!

[ChimpNchief]

You're all wrong. The majority of Americans didn't vote at all. Obama got 53 million votes and McCain got less than that. There are over 300 million people living in the U.S. That tells me that 2/3 of the country either don't give a $h*t or feel like their vote doesn't count anyway. If everyone actually voted I think you would see that this country is more left than right. GOP policies failed miserably. They don't work. Where does that leave us as a nation? I say it's pretty much to the left of center. Eventually we'll have gay marriage. It's coming. Leagalize pot and there you go. Religion is on the downswing... most people don't go to church. Figure it out for yourself.

[bryan0218]

Dude your logic is way off. First of all population size is not the same as eligible voters, half the 300 million you cited are not even voting age.

[JimGroom]

You are correct sir. It is amazing that there are really so many folks who don't understand demographics.

[timberdoodle]

The fact is right wing thinking has landed the U.S. where it is now and the only hope of recovery comes well left of what some would term the center. Big business has always been able to convince the uneducated and uninformed that they need to allow the rich to get richer just in case everyone might someday have that same opportunity.

[instarx]

Oh Boy! Eighteen entire days of data... usage went from 19 to 218 on Google. And this is a TREND? This proves nothing.

Too bad Mr. Sirota didn't bother to talk to a statistician before he started drawing conclusions about an evil republican propaganda plot based on this paper-thin "evidence".

I could contrive just as big a change in Google for the term "conservative dog-poop" if I tried, and it certainly wouldn't prove i was anything other than a self-promoting dog-poop blogger-expert.

[jdwoman]

This nation is a conglomerate. We have many who are conservative, liberal, moderate, the whole gambit, depending on issues. What the media needs to cease is using labels and in painting everything in black and white. The majority of the people in America are grey.

[dutchman]

I was going to say the same thing, but you said it better.

I'm reminded of what my college statistics professors once said - "you can drown in a river that's - on average - only an inch deep.

[dutchman]

You protest too much.....

Do you really not believe that Fox News, most of AM radio and now - sadly - the wall street journal - all coordinate their talking points? On any given day, trying reading the Journal's editorial pages and then watch Fox. It's uncanny how they replicate one another. The Republicans are masters of the "meme" tactic.

[dramaunfolding]

The nation is right/center. I think everyone was getting carried away with this election. Now that the dust is settled most folks understand that BO beat a moderate. He (McCain) never energized the base because he was on the stump outspending BO.

Most $ conservatives stayed on the sidelies. I

[JimGroom]

Did they really? How did McCain get so many millions of votes? I suppose they came from angry liberals.

[naeldwyck]

It's all a matter of perspective. From where I live, and as far as right-left thinking applies at all, the USA has always seemed pretty far right, actually not anywhere near center. The only thing that Obama's election shows is that it is not anymore a lunatic right nation.It's all a matter of perspective. From where I live, and as far as right-left thinking applies at all, the USA has always seemed pretty far right, actually not anywhere near center. The only thing that Obama's election shows is that it is not anymore a lunatic right nation.

[naeldwyck]

apologies for this, the comments engine was acting up on me.

[naeldwyck]

It's all a matter of perspective. From where I live, and as far as right-left thinking applies at all, the USA has always seemed pretty far right, actually not anywhere near center. The only thing that Obama's election shows is that it is not anymore a lunatic right nation.

[eva belle]

Just because it is a popular narrative doesn't mean that it is true..As usual, the media wishes to define the terms.

[Mildmannered]

the last election proved that we are no longer a center-right nation, but rather are a center-center nation.(and if it repeats itself again, a center-left nation) The change is primarily from the large vote from Latinos for democrats and from young people for democrats. The future doesn't look that bright for the right wing voters as a large percentage of them are elderly voters, primarily white elderly voters. So it is time to reconfigure your graphs. Electoral votes for Obama, popular votes for Obama, success of democratic congressmen at the polls, success of democratic senators at the polls -- and then combine this with the democratic success two years ago. "A center-right" conclusion sounds like something coming from Faux news. If statistics are coming from the Reagan elections those were a generation ago before my daughters were even born, daughters who are young voting Obama adults, and before the passing of much of the generation ahead of me, who were predominantly white republicans or Reagan republicans.

[neocon666]

Let's see: McCain got trounced, the GOP lost the house, and the democratic party is poised to seize a veto-proof majority in the senate (not to mention local republican politicians getting their clocks cleaned), but we're still supposed to believe that means this country is "center-right". I guess it takes a while for the effects of the coolaid to wear off. Who knows -maybe Jebb Bush will be president in 2012!