In no way are an opposition to US adventurism, Gitmo, surveillance etc only ‘leftist positions’. Surely most of them are intellectually far closer to the traditional, small state, isolationist libertarian right?

“All of these are leftist positions, while supporting gay rights is not”

I guess this is implying that the economy went to hell when we got sidetracked with the gays?

Yes, just a Nebenwiderspruch!

If you think all political positions on non-economic themes are irrelevant, why is Greenwald of all people, best described as a left libertarian, your hero?

That’s funny, I can think of hundreds of examples, beginning with those Democrats who were quick to oppose US adventurism and outright war-mongering when Bush was President but have conveniently overlooked or completely discounted drone strikes, Gitmo, Fisa, surveillance of US citizens, persecutions of whistleblowers, etc., etc., etc..

All of these are leftist positions, while supporting gay rights is not. Whence cometh this tendency to confuse liberal democratic ‘values’ with leftist positions? One can either be a leftist or not, but it is silly to imagine that, say, Obama is a leftist, or anyone else associated with the two-party system is.

Glenn Greenwald is what’s left of the left, along with Chris Hedges and precious few others, despised by ‘liberals’ and conservatives alike.

I can’t talk about all governments, but according to my observations, in the US this is not true at all. What is or isn’t popular with the voters is irrelevant. Or, rather, it’s either an advantage to use, or an obstacle to overcome.

Parties that do not connect with the media[n?] voter do not get re-elected.

This is correct, but, in an environment where the voters are atomized individuals who spend the bulk of their time watching TV, connecting with voters requires nothing more than a media campaign. And media campaigns are expensive. Therefore: parties that don’t have money do not get re-elected. Parties that don’t have rich sponsors do not get re-elected. Rich people and businesses don’t need media campaigns to know what’s good for them. Therefore: parties that don’t look after the interests of their rich backers, in a real, no bullshit way, don’t get re-elected.

Consider the ‘93-94 health care reform story. At the beginning, IIRC, about 70% of the voters favored a universal healthcare system. Then, insurance companies ran TV ads, the infamous ‘Harry and Louise’ ads (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_and_Louise), and the support for universal healthcare dropped below 50%. It’s that simple.

2. The percentage who identify as Republicans follows roughly the opposite pattern. Only around 20% of Americans below 25 identify as Republicans.

3. Democrats are quite strong among those under age 24. The percent Democrat stays at the one-third mark until about age 45, when it climbs slightly and remains higher through the 50s and early 60s, hovering at around the 40% point,

To win elections, both parties must win the independent vote, but the republicans need to appeal more to this middle-of-the-road vote to get over the top. because they have a smaller base.

to win, republicans must always win the centre of political life. the democracts only need help from the centre to augment its larger base.

‘Gallup asked the following question frequently: “In view of the developments since we entered the fighting in Vietnam, do you think the U. S. made a mistake sending troops to fight in Vietnam?” If some one answers no, then we can assume that they supported the war. Almost every time the question was asked, people under 30 were more likely to say no than people aged 30-49, who in turn were more likely to say no than people 50 and older. The two exceptions were within sampling error. (The numbers for those who agreed that the war had been a mistake are, essentially a mirror image of those who did not. Those with no opinion started at about 20 per cent and declined as the war went on, though there were always more in the oldest group.) Here’s a table with the data: (data follows).

Other common beliefs about public opinion on the Vietnam war are also false. Educated people were more likely to support the war, not less. ’

http://www.seanet.com/~jimxc/Politics/Mistakes/Vietnam_support.html

Democrats outpace the GOP across every age group, but the gap varies from one cohort to another, with the greatest differences among the Baby Boomers and Generation Y. The GOP nearly achieves parity among Generation X (ages 30-44), people in their late 60s, and the 85-year old group.

The pollster’s analysis goes through several theories, noting that younger voters often tend to be more liberal. But one interesting hypothesis is floated, noting the extent of these differences and where they occur: That these groups are heavily influenced by the eras when they came of political age,—the Baby Boomers in the 60s, Generation X in the Reagan/Bush Sr. years, etc.

As you see, political opinions form in the youth and never change much. The republicans do now have a advantage among the old, because the old are silent generation and boomers who lean republican. In the eighties, the young did vote republican – generation X – and the old – the greatest generation voted democrats.

The democrats have or seem to have an advantage, because the youngest generation, the millenials, skews left and the silent generation, a republican voting block, starts to die off.

How little the fear of misfortune is then capable of balancing the hope of good luck appears still more evidently in the readiness of the common People to enlist as soldiers, or to go to sea, than in the eagerness of those of better fashion to enter into what are called the liberal professions.

What a common soldier may lose is obvious enough. Without regarding the danger, however, young volunteers never enlist so readily as at the beginning of a new war; and though they have scarce any chance of preferment, they figure to themselves, in their youthful fancies, a thousand occasions of acquiring honour and distinction which never occur.

These romantic hopes make the whole price of their blood. Their pay is less than that of common labourers, and in actual service their fatigues are much greater. ”

for a discussion, http://sds.hss.cmu.edu/media/pdfs/loewenstein/adamsmith.pdf Adam Smith, Behavioral Economist in JEP

the cross-over point in the rather small graph for party identification appears to be in the 30s with another step up in the late 50s as independents become more conservative but some go left, but the graph is small.

Younger people are more numerous on the left, and older people on the right. in 2008, obama’s vote was ages 18-29 – 66%; 30-44 – 52%; 45-64 – 50%; and 65 & over 45%

if you want to say that young people include 30 somethings, plainly we disagree on a definition. ‘Prime age’ is usually defined as age 25-54 for statistical purposes

Isn’t that begging the question? Isn’t Nick Cohen’s point that (a section of) the left has moved rightwards, e.g. to support theocrats and communalism under the guise of “anti-imperialism”, but that he has remained firmly on the left? I.e., to borrow your formula for people like David Frum, ‘I didn’t abandon “the left”, it abandoned me’.

Arlen Specter, Lincoln Chafee.

In Germany: Oskar Lafontaine, Heiner Geissler, Norbert Blüm.

Lafontaine is relevant here not so much because he switched from the social democrat to the Left, but because he switched from the left wing of the social democrats to the left wing of the Left Party.

Geissler and Blüm , of course, can be best described as living fossils, last remnants of the catholic workers movements. As their social milieu and their party wing slowly dissolved, they now look oddly left wing for christian democrats. Younger versions of them probably just would have joined the greens and the social democrats, respectively.

That is a myth. At least in the United States, political positions are consolidated around age 30 and then stable.