Even Right-Wingers Become Liberals When They Turn Off Fox News{long read}

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http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/even-right-wingers-become-liberals-when-they-turn-fox-news?page=0%2C0

***SNIP

The GSS asks about more than two dozen specific problems or program areas, asking if the amount we’re spending is “too little,” “too much” or “about right.” Not only do most Americans think we’re spending too little in almost every area — most conservatives also think the same. Indeed — hold onto your hats — even most conservative Republicans feel that way as well.

Take Social Security and Medicare, for example: two top “entitlements” that Republicans insist must be cut significantly, and that Obama has repeatedly indicated he would cut … if Republicans would agree to raise revenues as well. Progressives long have argued that these programs need more revenues, not less spending, so it’s not surprising that liberals surveyed by the GSS think we’re spending too little on such programs. Combining GSS data from 2000 to 2012, and asking about Social Security and spending on “improving and protecting the nation’s health” (GSS’s closest match with Medicare), liberal Democrats thought we were spending “too little” rather than “too much” on one or both by a margin of 87.1 percent to 2.4 percent — a ratio of over 36-to-1. But all other groups of Americans held the same view, even conservative Republicans — just not by the same overwhelming amount. They “only” thought we were spending “too little” rather than “too much” by a margin of 59.2 percent to 13.1 percent— a ratio of 4.5-to-1. With figures like that — all well to the left of Democrats in D.C. — it’s no wonder that conservatives in Congress always talk about “saving” Social Security and Medicare, and forever try to get Democrats to take the lead in proposing actual cuts.

One more thing: If you look at how much liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans agree with one another — regardless of the positions they take — you come up with figures for a cross-ideological consensus. It’s the lower of the two percentages for each position taken. The conventional narrative has liberals and conservatives always, consistently taking opposite positions, but this example clearly shows that’s not the case. If the conventional narrative were true, the lower percentage for each position would be zero. Instead, it comes to a margin of 59.2 percent to 2.4 percent, for a ratio of 24.7-to-1.

Of course objections can be raised to these results. For one thing, people are reminded that spending costs money, but they are not being asked to directly weigh spending more money to paying more in taxes. When people are asked if they want more government and higher taxes, or the opposite, results tend to be more conservative. But there’s also evidence that people are generally more willing to pay for government programs the more specifically they are identified — even when they’re asked to consider the costs. Even welfare, which is very unpopular in general, gains substantial support when people are asked specific questions about specific people in specific situations. (In a one-time GSS supplement in 1986, 98 percent of all respondents indicated that welfare recipients should get more money than they actually receive — author’s analysis of data in “The Deserving Poor,” by Jeffrey A. Will.) In short — it’s complicated.

[canoeist52]

1. And this is the tide that the right-wing trolls are sent out to stem.

Ask who this benefits and we might find strange bedfellows.

[PETRUS]

2. K&R