Democratic Liberalism

The recent polarization of American politics has been far more obvious on the right than the left. The emergence of the tea party movement and its influence in Congress has brought to the fore political values that are more conservative than those of the average voter.

But polarization is not a one-way street. While Republicans have become more conservative, Democrats have grown more liberal. The Pew Research Center’s values surveys, spanning 1987 to 2012, show that Democrats as a whole have moved to the left in recent years. They are much more socially liberal than they were even a decade ago, more supportive of an activist government, more in favor of increased regulation of business.

Under the more centrist Obama administration, the leftward movement of Democratic voters has been of limited political consequence. Most of the change on social policies such as same-sex marriage and marijuana legalization has come at the state and local levels. However, looking ahead to 2016, the viability of liberal Democrats has emerged as a critical question for the Democratic Party. Even as conventional wisdom coalesces around Hillary Rodham Clinton as the establishment candidate, the success of prominent progressives — Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio come to mind — means the party could face an ideological divide in 2016.

And the progressives, or liberals, seem to have the momentum. Gallup recently reported that liberal self-identification has edged up to its highest level in more than 20 years. Similarly, Pew Research’s values surveys have documented increasingly liberal beliefs among Democrats on social, economic and regulatory matters. While the move leftward has occurred among moderate and conservative Democrats as well as liberal ones, liberals have either moved further left or hold more intense views than moderates and conservatives.

And that’s where comparisons with polarization on the right begin to break down. Although liberal Democrats have swelled in number, the advantage within the party still rests with moderates and conservatives. In Pew’s nationwide survey in January, only 34 percent of Democrats called themselves liberal, compared with 63 percent identifying as moderate or conservative. In contrast, conservatives are a clear majority (67 percent) in the GOP, while self-described moderate and liberal Republicans make up just 32 percent of the party.

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