Here are two graphs. Let’s consider the contradiction in them and why there is this contradiction.
The first graph is self-explanatory and shows the growing tendency for Americans to identify with the Democratic Party, moving away from identification with the Republican Party.
The second graph captures the frequency of news stories (just before and then following the election) which have “America is a center-right nation” as subject (or the questioning of that presumption). But if you watch/read as much news as I have time to do (and few will or can), you will have noticed (and I’ve written about it here) that this far more often comes as an assertion. One would think that the elections of 2006 and 2008, aside from other polling data that’s available, would tend to discourage such assertions. But clearly, they are arriving with frequency and vigor.
If you turn on a conservative talk radio show today, or watch an hour of Fox, it is near a certainty that you will hear this assertion made, likely more than once. If you watch cable news other than Fox today, you will hear this assertion forwarded by some conservative pundit invited onto the show. Again, you’ll hear it multiple times. Many people asserting it will belief it to be true. Others will be asserting it for strategic propagandist reasons whether they believe it so or not.
So, what to make of that rather astounding rise in frequency seen in graph 2? I think it is two things. First, a purposeful PR project (directed at both the media and the public) to blunt the depth or significance of conservative losses. The hope is to push back against the possible narrative of Democrats/liberalism as “winners” and the narrative of increasing liberalism as the choice of the majority. Second, I think it is a consequence of so many members of the conservative movement living with an isolated and self-validating universe such that they cannot actually conceive that they might sit outside of the majoritarian norm.
