4 Signs the Country Is Actually Moving to the Left

Written by Chris Bowers of The Daily Kos.

The rise of the tea party, and the pending Republican gains in Congress have led quite a few observers to declare that the country is shifting to the right ideologically. Those calls will only grow louder after the election.

The problem with these sentiments is that they are just flat out wrong. Completely inaccurate. Demonstrably false, and easily so. The country has shifted dramatically to the left from where it was 40, 30, or even 15 years ago. Many positions that were quite recently liberal and contested are now mainstream to the point of being unchallengeable (or, at least, it is shocking when they are challenged). Many others that were lefty-fringe positions only 20 years ago are now held by a majority of the country, or at least a substantial, mainstream minority. Further, the current incarnation of the Democratic Party has managed to expand public sector social investment spending to heights that are the equivalent of the New Deal and the Great Society combined.

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