Americans Move Left, New York Times Misses It

The headline atop Saturday's op-ed page was a hallowed standby for the New York Times: "Americans Move to the Middle." Assembled by Times"visual columnist" Charles Blow, the text of the column was dwarfed by 15 graphs tracking recent movement in American public opinion, based on Gallup polls. There was one problem: the headline totally distorted the data.

An accurate headline would have been "American Opinion Moves Leftward" -- but accuracy was apparently trumped by centrist ideology. (Yes, there are ideologues of the center, as well as of Left or Right.)

It's a cherished myth of many in establishment punditry that most Americans perpetually and happily find their way to the safe center of American politics. This pleasant status quo consensus is marred, in Blow's text, by "party extremists sharpening their wedge issues" to rally their bases and caricature their opponents.

Here's the data presented by Blow and the Times (pdf): 15 public opinion graphs on various issues starting in 2001-2003 and ending in 2006-2008. Of the 15, about a dozen track issues on which there are recognizable positions associated with Right and Left. Of those dozen, the trend in opinion is unmistakenly leftward on virtually every one.

On foreign policy:
-- "The Iraq war has made the U.S. less safe from terrorism." 37% in 2003 and 49% four years later.

-- "The U.S. should not attack another country unless it has been attacked first." 51% in Oct. 2002 and 57% in 2006

-- "The government is spending too much for national defense and military purposes." 19% in Feb. 2001 and 44% in Feb. 2008.

On cultural issues:
-- "Organized religion should have less influence in this nation." 22% in Jan. 2001 and 34% in Jan. 2008.

Asked if the following were "morally acceptable," trend lines were leftward. "Gay relationships": 40% in May 2001 to 48% in May 2008. "Divorce": 59% to 70% in same time period. "Medical research using stem cells from human embryos": from 52% in May 2002 to 62% in May 2008.

Some might argue that there is one Times graph that trends rightward: "The state of moral values in the country as a whole is getting worse." It went from 67% in May 2002 to 81% in May 2008. Yet I'm no conservative and I'm absolutely part of the 81% -- given the declining morals that descend from corporate, government and religious elites.

So the Times presents Gallup data showing a clear trend toward the left, and calls it a "Move to the Middle." Is the assumption that we were mostly rightwingers a few years ago? Or is the "move to the middle" line simply more reassuring to an establishment newspaper?

The reality is that longterm trends in American opinion are generally leftward on issues, as documented in well-researched studies.

It's a reality that troubles those Beltway pundits who constantly goad Barack Obama toward "the center" on issues like Iraq and NAFTA -- when they mean away from the center of mass opinion and upwards toward the center of elite opinion.

A demagogue like Sean Hannity instinctively knows this reality, which is why his attacks on Obama emphasize WrightAyresBitterMichelle more than issues.

* *

Jeff Cohen is director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College. He founded the media watch group FAIR in 1986.

Comments

[jrosenb1]

The Times, in its news pages (as distinct from its editorial pages) has been pushing the traditional media's pseudo-centrist line for years. Of course they're afraid to say Americans "have moved to the left" because "left" (like "liberal") has been a term of derision for years. And so, the Times is ever willing to bend over backwards to accommodate the talking points of the right.

Take Obama coverage. Not a day goes by that the paper doesn't run article headings that belittle Obama. Here are a few, chosen at random: "For Obama, a First Step Is Not a Missstep: A Baghdad Signal Or Just Good Luck?" "McCain, at Bush [Sr.] Home, Faults Obama on War Plan" "McCain Links Obama and High Gas Prices" "Conservative Group Takes On Obama in Ad and Film" "Change Mideast Does Not Believe In: More Of Same Seen If Obama Is Elected" (all July 22!); "Obama Gets Europe's Ear: Pleasing the Crowds Without the Specifics" (July 25); "Black Radio's Zeal for Obama is Left's Answer to Limbaugh" (July 27; gosh, four scary words in one banner: "Black," "Zeal," "Left," and "Limbaugh") "Going for That Presidential Look, but Trying Not to Overdo It" (July 27; accompanying photo: Obama standing awkwardly before 10 Downing Street;
presidential? Wrong country! Message: He's a pretender.­)

Given that the Times is still capable of thoughtful editorials, the paper is clearly at war with itself (here disguised as a war against Obama).

[leftyfrizzel]

As Jim Hightower,­progressiv­e populist from Texas,said,"There isn't anything in the 'middle of the road' 'cept yellow lines and dead skunks!"

[abigail1]

I thought it was, "there ain't nothin' in the middle of the road 'cept yellow lines and dead armadillo.­" either way, it's brilliant.

[jmpurser]

I wish the pundits would start paying attention to WHICH road we're getting to the middle of.

[CologneCitizen]

It is not a question of left or right, intelligent solutions often are in between, or a mixture of both.

But the media in the USA is more some kind of a propaganda machine. They decide what the public should know, they work on primitive but powerful human instincts like fear. It is really sad so many newspapers have closed down their foreign offices. The bettter people are informed, the harder it is to push them around. With the watergate scandal you put investigative journalism on the map. Nowadays when I travel the USA, it is very sad to find out how much the standard of American journalism has deteriorated.

[AnAussieSlummingIt]

"It is not a question of left or right, intelligent solutions often are in between, or a mixture of both."
What intelligent solutions?
Intelligent solutions are rarely found anywhere in the right wing ideologies - even considering something new runs counter to the true conservatives grain.
I'm so sick of all this BS about 'the centre'. (You said it so well leftyfrizzel)
The centre is the realm of the scoundrel selling snake oil.
The centre is the media creation manufactured to make reasonable demands seem entirely unreasonable, and vice versa - after all we are all sensitized to executives (on the right) getting outrageous squillions for doing nothing - but what is the reaction to the possibility that your average joe might get a slice of the pie (aaaaaaaggggghhhhh socialism will destroy us all).

[Rog49Thomas]

See Chomsky "Manufacturing Consent"

[clevelandchick]

My problem with the left right dichotomy is that issues that effect us all such as energy and global climate change are being used on both sides as political carrots.

Listening to a radio show a guy from Left Business News had this to say about Social Security: both Democrats and Republicans know it will be solvent and it is not in trouble. The predictions used by the government that both sides accept applies the very worst most unlikely case scenario for the economy to predict it's solvency..­that the US would have to be in a depression and experience no growth for 75 years for the Social Security fund to become insolvent. If that prediction of our economy were true, Social Security would be the least of our problems. But both Dems and Repubs use Social Security to rally their base to get votes, that's why they won't tell us the truth.

Am I surprised the Mediacracy isn't telling America they are more liberal than they realize? Not at all. Neither side wants their base to hear that, they need conflict to raise money.

Which is actually why I like Obama. He's addressing the issues we need to and saying we can all get involved in solving them. And there's no reason we can't, unless you are someone who feels if the problem is solved you'll be out of a job or power. And that's where it gets interesting. How many people are willing to do that?

[Marlyn]

"Social Security would be the least of our problems."

Social Security IS the least of our problems. It is the one government program that is still working.
Medicare is the problem!

[FearlessFreep]

That story reminds me of TIME magazine after the 2006 elections put the Democrats in control of Congress. They responded with the inane cover story "Why the centre is the new place to be" (written by Joe Klein, of course).

[Bladernr1001]

The "center" is simply a macro comglomeration of many individual opinions. Most people have specific opinions on a variety of issues that slide all over the political spectrum in any given individual. When this data is collected and parsed it averages into a "middle" opinion. I means nothing except to campaign consultants who are paid to get their client elected.

[FearlessFreep]

Is there a more meaningless phrase than "move to the middle"?

There's no "centre," only centrists.

[Bladernr1001]

Ah...that was my point. Most individual issues have no logical middle position. But polititians love to carve out a "middle" position on issues (which rarely solves any problems) so as to offend a few of there constituents as possible.

[peacefulworldcitizen]

The whole thing with polls, any polls is that a certain type of person talks to pollsters. I don't talk to them and no one I know has ever talked to them. So, the only people that are being polled are the ones that will actually talk to them for whatever reason, they are lonely, they think polls matter, whatever. There is a huge segment of society that won't and don't talk to pollsters so every poll is skewed.

Oh, and not to mention those that only have cell phones, a growing segment of society.

[NicholeWebb]

This is a splendid point. I have never been polled... either when I was a conservative or upon my conversion to sanity.

[Sciguy]

I've been "push-polled," but never subjected to a genuine political poll. The push-polls are kinda fun - it's easy to tell what your answers are supposed to be (with questions like "Do you prefer drinking clean water or dirty water?" or " Do you think we should fight against terrorism?"), and I make it a point to answer "incorrect­ly."

[Marlyn]

"There is a huge segment of society that won't and don't talk to pollsters so every poll is skewed."

and that includes me. I took Arianna's pledge to not participate in polls. Polls represent the opinions of those people asked, and that is all they represent. The fallacy is to assume that the polls represent what the rest of us are thinking.

[uhappytoo]

If and when anyone can actually measure the "middle" of American thought I'll know that mind readers are among us. There is no such thing as that middle when applied to the entire nation. This is simply another media construct to further their illusions on punditry.

[darthdarcy]

The center those who are most, apathetic and mediocre..­.

[WoodyCPM]

Like "baby boom generation". As a single minded, culturally left, unified entity, a pure fabrication of the media. Totally made up nonsense indicating yet again again the laziness, ignorance and self absorption of the media stars who are famous because they are on TV, not because they have any insight into anything. They all tow the "centrist" baloney, the accepted and acceptable opinions of the political and economic elites, of which they are most all members. In fact you have to parrot the right of center claptrap in order to be allowed in. Stop buying their junk. Blow up your TV, throw away your papers.

[darthdarcy]

You've got that right Jeff, and the DNC doesn't get it either or Obama..

These so called Conservatives have been wrong about everything and ruined everything they've touched which is why they are now even more dangerous and turning even more fascist as their ideology is proven to be one big disaster for America..

America was founded by not just liberals but revolutionaries and radicals, there is no such thing as a conservative revolution­...

Maybe somebody should go explain all this to poor ole Antoni Scalia..!

[wayoutleft]

the center has nothing to do with any polls. the center is the location of big-money, bought off capitalist media. that's the center- where they are. the center is not politically defined; it is commercially defined. it is politics free. any ordinary citizen talking about any sort of politics is usually talking from anger or a state of conflict. citizens are talking politics when they do because they realize they are OUTSIDE OF the domain in which power is exercised and are being fed garbage about how their vote counts and stuff. most of the time they're passively content, though. but that still doesn't put them in the center of anything. people like rupert murdoch and the health insurance executives are in the center. no ordinary people are in the center. they're just way out on the edge of what's going on. this idea that everybody is some kind of pin on a political bell curve is just more self-serving garbage from fat boys hioping you believe you matter.

[radiclib]

.
.
You make an interesting observation about Hannity to close your essay.
Hannity is the propaganda id of the right-wing extremists.
He may be a punk, but he's a dangerous one.
The Fairness Doctrine is not the only thing he should worry about after Jan. 20.
We are wise to him.
.
.

[MikeMidCity]

The NYTs is caught up in the conventional wisdom .... which is wise until it isn't conventional wisdom any more but what used to be.

[fairwitness]

Indeed. We need to get Glen Greewald, who is the master of putting these things in right and proper perspective, on tv as much as possible.

[Mitchell4A]

The MSM has been dropping the ball in a number of areas. One of my recent favorites is the way in which it has been (mis)interpreting the national polls to make it seem as if Obama's campaign may be running out of steam.

"Mead Hype and Election Polls (or the sky is falling)
http://msa4.wordpress.com/

[Merlin7]

Never has the term "corporate media" been so fitting as in this election. You can tell by the way the MSM operate that they are scared to death of their big, largely right-wing advertisers. Even the cable news networks are groveling: McCain's blathering face is everywhere, as anchors lamely try to pretend that Obama made serious mistakes on his European tour. It's all really disgusting. Fortunately, the New York Times and most other large newspaper chains are steadily going bankrupt. Too bad the conglomerates that own the TV channels are unlikely to do the same. America desperately needs a new, progressiv­e-oriented news channel, and none is in sight. Instead we get lots of Republican talking points: Right-wing blather disguised as populism, capitalist tutorials disguised as consumer advice and "objective" news reports that treat bogus conservative ideology as gospel.