Looked at this way, almost 30 percent of Americans are “consistent liberals” — people who call themselves liberals and have liberal politics. Only 15 percent are “consistent conservatives” — people who call themselves conservative and have conservative politics. Nearly 30 percent are people who identify as conservative but actually express liberal views. The United States appears to be a center-right nation in name only.
That is from John Sides, and the data come from Ellis and Stimson’s Ideology in America.
PS — Take a look at which areas of federal spending Americans (don’t) want to cut, from 2011:
Amazingly, conservatives and liberals had virtually identical views on whether to cut spending on Medicare and Social Security, the two largest federal social spending programs — and this was at the height of the Tea Party movement.
For the talk (and evidence, I admit) about how polarized American politics are today, I still think that conservatives and liberals share one thing in common: they’re not (really) libertarians.