Where is the U.S. Ideologically?

One of the biggest netroots memes we saw after last year's election was the pushback against the idea of America as a "center-right nation." Radicals beat back against that line as if their life depended on it.

Here's this from Firedoglake, for example:

The Republicans are a hard-right party in a center-left country, which leaves them with two options: They can move left (not happening), or they can have their media friends bray about how America is a center-right nation until Obama and the Democrats move right to join them. I have a sinking feeling that that might actually work...

Here's Chris Bowers just after President Obama took office:

We have spent so long living under a government that was dominated by the right-wing of the Republican Party, that we are still having a difficult time coping with the new political reality. The right-wing is no longer the problem. The so-called "moderates" in Congress are.

Hubris, I guess?

President Obama obviously doesn't think the country's so center left (which explains his wimpiness on DADT, for example). Obama hammered the netroots hordes last week for eating their own, and Jane Hamsher responded with characteristic defiance, "Will MoveOn Cave To Obama’s Pressure?"

It's kind of funny, really. My sense is that once hardline radicals found a sympathetic Democrat in power, they thought they'd captured their own administration.

In any case, new polling data out today should help put things in perspective. Sean Trende has a full analysis at "What Emerging Progressive Majority?"

He builds on Gallup's new survey analysis out today, "Special Report: Ideologically, Where Is the U.S. Moving?"

I'll just quote the introduction. My real interest is to see the reaction on the left now that their balloon's popped:

Despite the results of the 2008 presidential election, Americans, by a 2-to-1 margin, say their political views in recent years have become more conservative rather than more liberal, 39% to 18%, with 42% saying they have not changed. While independents and Democrats most often say their views haven't changed, more members of all three major partisan groups indicate that their views have shifted to the right rather than to the left.