Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell writes in her column that multiple surveys are showing that liberals and conservatives both perceive that the country is shifting too far in the other direction. The lesson she takes away from this, and that she warns her readers about, is that a culture of being the underdog or having grievances makes it harder to come together and more likely that the two sides might be violent or immoral with each other. That’s one way to look at the data, sure, and the survey results are interesting. But I found the results interesting for a different reason – a reason she doesn’t address at all in her column.
The reason I noticed is that, because the wording of the survey questions is so vague (pollsters make them intentionally vague when they’re trying to measure broad, general feelings), it is possible for both liberals and conservatives* to be correct in their perceptions about whether the US is shifting more right or more left. The reason is pretty simple – it depends on which issue or set of issues is being considered.
[* Authors note: There are conservatives, and there are rightists. Being a conservative has a specific definition that does not apply to many on the right whose values are absolutely not conservative. I have endeavored to separate the two in the rest of the post below.]
Let’s look at abortion as an example of both. First, abortion rights have definitely shifted the country more conservative, both nationally with the overturning of Roe v. Wade and locally with lots of states severely restricting or banning abortions as a result. Second, abortion rights are shifting liberal in other states, specifically as a response to SCOTUS ruling, with many states going so far as to put abortion access into their state Constitutions. And, not coincidentally, the population of the states where abortion has been protected is higher than the population of states where abortion has been restricted or banned.
So, on this issue at least, conservatives can point at abortion protections in populous states as supporting their perception that the US has shifted more liberal while liberals can point at the Dobbs decision and state abortion bans to show the country has shifted right.
That said, we should ask which perception is more accurate to what is reality. In the case of abortion, given it was nationally legal prior the Dobbs decision and now isn’t, the reality is that the country has shifted more rightward on this issue. So in this case, the liberal perception is more accurate than the conservative perception.
I understand that pollsters like the Pew Research Center aren’t going to ask about specific issues in a poll intended to assess general feelings, but we could do a similar reality vs. perception assessment for other issues beyond abortion. Here are a number of examples.
On the Second Amendment: There has been a real shift away from gun control/public safety and toward unrestricted access and use of firearms. This is a direct result of the Bruen SCOTUS decision and the Heller decision prior to that. This is a clear real rightward shift, so the liberals are more accurate on this issue.
On libraries and book bans: the American Library Association and PEN America both track book bans and they’re WAY up over the last few years. Given the topics being banned are liberal topics (racial and gender equality, LGBTQ+ identity, and allegedly sexual content) and the people demanding the bans are rightists who are attempting to impose their morality on everyone (instead of allowing everyone to decide their morality for themselves), this is clearly another issue where the real shift is rightward and the liberals perception is, again, more accurate.
On transgender care: In this instance I’m going to say that the real shift is liberal and that the conservative response is one of attempting to maintain the status quo. I vehemently disagree with the conservative response, but I do think that this is an issue where conservatives and rightists are correct that there is a real leftward shift in the country.
On gay marriage: This has been legal nationally since 2015, and the question had been clearly trending in many states towards acceptance prior to then. But there has been a lot of reported discussion among conservatives and rightists that the 6-3 conservative SCOTUS majority means this could get overturned and thrown back to the states again. Tough to say how real the shift is, though, so I’ll call the real shift as neutral for now.
On immigration: the real shift here has been towards restricting Immigration, which is typically considered a conservative position. So the liberal perception is again more accurate
On refugees: the US accepts far fewer refugees today than it has historically. There has been a 30 year long trend in accepting fewer refugees that hit a low when Trump was in office. The number of refugees accepted has rebounded slightly under Biden, but remains much lower than 30 years ago. So, depending on what time period you’re considering, the reality is the shift has been both liberal and conservative.
On racism: Corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs are under attack. “Woke” is being redefined as a bad thing (it was originally a term created by African Americans). Race conscious admission policies have been overturned by the SCOTUS. The Voting Rights Act has largely been gutted. The rightward shift here is obvious, so again the liberal perception is more accurate.
On public health: the anti-vaccine movement was quietly percolating until COVID, but since then it’s become vocal, more associated with rightism (it used to be non-partisan in very weird ways), has spread widely, and has broadened to be not just anti-mask and anti-quarantine, but also generally anti-science. As a result we’ve seen a marked increase in vaccine preventable infections and the average lifespan of US adults (that dropped a lot during the pandemic) is recovering much slower than the rest of the world. So again, the shift in this issue is also rightward and the liberal perception is more accurate.
On democratic norms: there has been a marked shift away from democracy toward authoritarianism by the GOP, and it goes well beyond Trump, Jan. 6, and the 2020 election. The shift here has definitely been rightward, and so the liberal perception is more accurate.
On the environment and climate: the SCOTUS has made it easier to pollute. Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord (although Biden re-entered it again). Biden passed climate legislation that, while not sufficient given what we know, was still way better than nothing. And the GOP continues to push for “drill baby drill” and rejects holding oil companies accountable for methane leaks. While one could argue this is neutral based on Biden’s actions, given that conservatives seem to be pro-pollution, especially when being so keeps corporate profits up, I think this should still qualify as a rightward shift.
I could go on, but I think I’ve made my point – the real shift in the US has been more rightward than leftward/liberal. Which means that the perceptions of liberals are more accurate in this case than the perceptions of conservatives and rightists. Unfortunately, I’m not sure that it matters. When you get all your information from an echo chamber, being told that your perception of reality is largely incorrect isn’t likely to go over well, to put it mildly.
The Daedalnexus 
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