Washington Post, Monkey Cage: The conservative shift in public opinion has happened in all 50 states
... The figure below presents one illustration of this pattern. Here we compare the policy mood in each state in the early 1960s (hollow dots) and in the early 2000s (solid dots). Higher values indicate a more conservative policy mood. In each instance, the solid dot is to the right of the hollow dot, suggesting that the public’s policy mood has moved in a conservative direction in every state. Furthermore, most of these increases are statistically significant.
... Importantly, the public has not moved in a conservative direction in all issue areas. For example, support for same-sex marriage
has been increasing across all states. It is also worth noting that our
findings on the 1960s and 2000s hides important shifts in policy mood
between these periods, such as increased policy liberalism during the
1980s. However, when it comes to support of government programs, the net conservative shift is clear. Considering the evidence that inequality is near an all-time high, this may seem like a surprising result. Prominent economic models, for example,
expect that as the rich get richer, public support for government
policies like spending more on education, infrastructure, and job
creation would increase. Instead, across the country, the public’s
policy mood has moved in a conservative direction. ...
I'd love to know what with the variables they measured over the last five years or so. Is there a move away from the conservative view? I thinking there probably has not been much.
The chart fits my perception of the electorate. I think we have been witnessing the emergence of a libertarian "live and let live" philosophy ... conservative on government and liberal on many social issues.
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