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You are here: Home / Politics / Politicans / David Brooks Giving A Seminar At The Aspen Institute / If only Alf Landon had run as a real conservative

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32Comments

  2. 2.

    El Cid

    I just don’t think people like the word “liberal” (smacks of art & sexual permissiveness) and like the word “conservative”, which sounds like a person who is thoughtful and analytic in spending money and doesn’t like all sorts of newfangled culture changes. It doesn’t matter how those words are used in politics.

  3. 3.

    Bob L

    “But everyone we called up on our phone interviews during the Great Depression said this! The science is sound!” bahahahah!

  6. 6.

    The Main Gauche of Mild Reason

    @El Cid:

    I just don’t think people like the word “liberal” (smacks of art & sexual permissiveness)

    I think it’s sexual permissiveness, mostly. Even on dating sites, no one wants to let on that they’re “easy”, even if they are.

  8. 8.

    Tom Q

    I’ve said this for years: that such-and-such percentage describe themselves as liberal or conservative is meaningless. Show me what their policy preferences are. In the 80s, Americans were dominantly (though not as exclusively as the media would have it) conservative. Since mid-Clinton, they’ve tilted liberal. The Jon Meacham-promoted center-right myth — embraced by the blue dogs, to the detriment of us all — was a scam.

    Remember when Susan Faludi wrote that book Backlash? It demonstrated that American women recoiled at labelling themselves feminists. But if you asked how they felt about pretty much every item on the feminist agenda, they were all for them. Image and branding is much of what prevents liberal ideas from dominating the political landcsape, but over time the ideas are winning reagrdless.

  10. 10.

    Comrade Sock Puppet of the Great Satan

    “I just don’t think people like the word “liberal” (smacks of art & sexual permissiveness)”

    If liberal girls are sexually permissive, why’d I only get dates with Ms. Dexter and Ms. Sinister during college? I don’t care what Christine O’Donnell says, it’s not slaking lust.

    [Mind you, after reading Angela Dworkin I spent so much time worrying about objectifying women I was afraid to ask anyone out in case of perpetuating patriarchy. That, and the poor personal hygiene might explain the situation.]

  11. 11.

    El Cid

    @Tom Q: Actually, my recollection is that polls consistently showed that most Americans disagreed with Reagan’s policies, particularly when they weren’t worded in the PR way the government did. That doesn’t mean they voted that way.

  12. 12.

    Ross Hershberger

    Same thing with religion. Non-religious people who grew up in nominally Christian households self-identify as Christian even when their behavior doesn’t support that description. Only committed Agnostics and Atheists self identify that way. When you poll people on their religious practices, you get a lot more functional Agnostics in the results.

  13. 13.

    Ross Hershberger

    Oops. Lost a post that was supposed to go before the last one.
    Many people who self-identify as Conservative would be moderate to liberal if their actual views and behavior were taken into account. It’s just awkward for a lot of people to use the L word these days.

  14. 14.

    Pangloss

    Landon’s VP nominee was Frank Knox, owner/publisher of the Chicago Daily News— which again proves that the media has always been liberal.

  15. 15.

    eemom

    @El Cid:

    the word “conservative”, which sounds like a person who is thoughtful and analytic in spending money and doesn’t like all sorts of newfangled culture changes. It doesn’t matter how those words are used in politics.

    As one who likes words to actually mean shit, I have to say that the use of the word “conservative” to identify the batshit crazy right these days is really beginning to bother me. Maybe the OED ought to “update” that definition too.

  17. 17.

    jrg

    “Liberal” vs “Conservative” is a Rorschach test. It means absolutely nothing in terms of what policies you support.

    I wish that “Liberal” meant “Democrat” and “Conservative” meant “Republican”… Then those of us who occasionally visit center-right blogs like the Dish and Frum forum would not have to endure endless Burkean “true conservative” wank-fests.

    What you see is what you get: gutless pansies or racist, gullible, semi-literate rednecks. Take your pick.

  18. 18.

    El Cid

    @jrg: I wonder if anything changes when those polled are asked something like “Which policies do you support more frequently, policies from Democrats or policies from Republicans?” or whatever better worded variant.

  20. 20.

    OGLiberal

    I think when people hear “liberal” they think “libertine”. And yes, I think it’s mostly a sex thing – ie, if you’re liberal then you must be promiscuous. They don’t know the word libertine but they know what it means…or at least what it stands for. Their vision of a “liberal” is stuck in 1968 – pot, acid, communal living, orgies, dirty feet, peasant dresses, etc. If it’s not stuck in 1968 it’s associated with the left fringe – ie, if you’re a liberal then you must be a full-fledged member of Code Pink who gets dragged kicking and screaming from the gallery in Congress after screaming “Murderer!” at the President.

    I believe I’ve only heard one person in the public eye describe himself as a libertine, and that would be Roger Stone. And he’s just soooooo liberal….

  21. 21.

    eemom

    Supertramp called it back in the day:

    Better watch what you say, or they’ll be calling you a radical
    a liberal
    oh, fanatical, criminal….

  22. 22.

    goblue72

    Its not about sexual permissivenes – jeez, did you just get out of a freshman Psychology 101 lecture? Liberal – for whatever reason – connotes in the lizard brain minds of the average American someone who is an effeminate, wimpy, Communist, pencil-necked dweeb who wants to give free stuff to minorities, while conservatives smoke Marlboros, ride horses, and arm-wrestle bears all the while being heroically self-reliant.

    Americans, as a whole, are mis-informed selfish morons wholly unable to reason with logic or analyze empirical data. Vast numbers are completely in thrall to a whole series of religo-cultural biases and delusions. And willfully so.

    Have a 10 minute conversation with your average American and you’ll walk away feeling like stupider than when you started. Ever see those “idiot on the street” segments on Jay Leno? I can guarantee you he didn’t have to wander too far off the studio lot in Burbank to find them.

  25. 25.

    maus

    @eemom:

    As one who likes words to actually mean shit, I have to say that the use of the word “conservative” to identify the batshit crazy right these days is really beginning to bother me. Maybe the OED ought to “update” that definition too.

    I don’t know a word for “self-identifies as fiscal conservative but isn’t”.

  27. 27.

    maus

    @jrg: Oh no, tried that, but all the teabaggers I have as family are TOTALLY NOT REPUBLICANS, they’re something else, they’re “independents” or “libertarians” and “True conservatives”, they never vote republican and were totally unhappy with George Bush (for being too liberal) and they were the one person who stood up but the LAMESTREAM MEDIA wouldn’t listen.

    Yeah, of course they’re Republicans but you can’t use accurate lingo with them.

  28. 28.

    Bob L

    Hmm some of you aren’t getting the joke; The poll was done by phone in 1933 when rural Americans didn’t have electricity and a lot of people were to poor from the depression to afford a phone in their house. The pole automatically filters for the upper middle class and rich, so no surprise the majority are conservative.

    Today they call it the Rassumen likely voter model.

  29. 29.

    El Cid

    @NR: FDR was ‘bipartisan’, except that in his day it was balancing the Southern segregationist wing with the non-Southern sections. Not an easy task.

  30. 30.

    kevina

    Long rant coming:

    You know, I think of two things here. One, the word “Liberal” has always been demonized in this country. Even though I think many people actually ARE “Liberal,” they refuse to call themselves such. In truth, of course, this really got in to high gear w/ Reagan going after “the libruls.”

    I hate this b/c I AM liberal and proud of it. In any other western country, I could proudly broadcast that. Not here.

    Also, this reminds me of my wish to change the names of our parties, and add one major one. Broadly speaking, the names “Democratic” and “Republican” no longer make any sense. The two parties are well and truly distinctly ideological, left and right. To pretend otherwise, esp. w/ the GOP, is silly.

    But no, we still insist on trying to remove ideological labels, and voting on sheer individual “likeability.” That got us GW Bush (well, sorta, 2000 and all). At some point, we as voters need to be clear about what we are voting for.

    So, I would change the Democratic Party to the “Progressive/Liberal Party.” I’d prefer Liberal, but given how the right (helped by the MSM) has twisted liberalism into something to be loathed, Progressive might be the way to go. I’d change the GOP to the “Conservative Party,” though I would never call these rubes “Tories.”

    That’s what we really have, so why not codify it? Two parties with clear beliefs and programs to choose from. Like Canada, UK and others.

    Since I think the Dem. coalition can be unwieldy, at best, I’d be tempted, initially, to split it up into a Liberal and, say, Labor Party, with an initial “non-compete pact” between the two to avoid Conservative domination (unless we institute AV or PR).

    Just my inner geek talking.

  31. 31.

    HyperIon

    @Bob L wrote:

    The poll was done by phone in 1933 when rural Americans didn’t have electricity and a lot of people were to poor from the depression to afford a phone in their house.

    Hmmm, I read EZ’s post and missed the part about it being the famous “we only asked people with phones, what could go wrong?” poll. I don’t think it is. I think THAT poll had a specific question about which candidate would you vote for (Dewey/Truman?)

    So I don’t think that was EZ’s jpoint. And I often miss DougJ’s point. To me this is another of his lamer posts.

  32. 32.

    Bob L

    @HyperIon: Gallop did that with FDR first. Alistair Cooke has this hilarious story of waiting staying late election night 1933 at Cambridge to hear the results with all his rich, young American buds who were all stoked to hear Hoover re-elected for four more years of screw the poor because Gallop said it was a done deal. Cooke then spent the night watching them wilt as Roosevelt won. The polls were crap because Gallop was only doing phone polls. Since Truman verses Dewey was 10 years later it shows they hadn’t learned their lesson, or more like the rich who paid for those polls didn’t want to hear the real results.

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