Last week was a great one for liberals in America.
First there was the nationwide, long-overdue acknowledgement of the Confederate flag as a hurtful symbol and a renewed dialogue on race relations.
Next there was a reaffirmation and celebration of ObamaCare, President Obama’s signature domestic policy initiative and a goal of liberals for generations.
Finally there was the legalization of gay marriage in all 50 states, a landmark achievement in a long struggle for LGBTQ+ civil rights.
This past week is a microcosm of a larger trend: liberals and liberalism are back in America, and here to stay.
For many years the label “liberal” has been a pejorative one for politicians and voters. In the 1960s and 1970s, liberals were hippies and burnouts. In the 1980s and 1990s, liberals were tax-and-spend career politicians. In the 2000s, liberals were far-left voters and activists with a radical social agenda. Now, liberals are pushing progressive attitudes and policies into the mainstream.
Liberal is no longer a dirty word. People are identifying themselves as liberals in record numbers. The Democratic Party is increasingly left wing, with politicians like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren riding waves of popularity. Even though corporations and employers are still fiscally conservative organizations, their leaders and policies reflect liberal attitudes. And polls show the younger generation is increasingly liberal.
The great recession has people arguing for fiscally liberal policies like taxes on the rich and protections for the poor. The country is increasingly socially liberal, supporting gay marriage, marijuana use and a woman’s right to choose in large numbers. Not to mention Barack Obama may be the most liberal president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
That’s not to say conservatism is dead. More people still identify as conservative than liberal, and the Republican party has become increasingly conservative over the last 35 years. But young Republicans are more socially liberal than their party leaders, rejecting social issues as campaign rallying cries. The party nominated Mitt Romney in 2012, perhaps the most liberal Republican candidate in more than 50 years. And a nascent libertarian wing of the party has the potential to blur the ideological lines even further.
This new dynamic of a liberal America will be fascinating for the 2016 election. How will politicians react to the sentiments of the public at large when it contradicts with the wishes of their constituencies? Whatever their strategies, it’s clear that America is moving.
It’s going to the left, to the left.