Press

America Turns Left On Social Issues, But Not On Government

04.16.2013

In his article for McClatchy Newspapers on “Social Issues and Public Opinion”, David Lightman quotes PPI President Will Marshall:

Some saw Barack Obama as a modern-day Franklin Roosevelt, ushering in a 21st century version of New Deal liberalism. Others saw a John F. Kennedy, heralding the dawn of a new progressive age of expanding rights.

America in the age of Obama is something in between, a new landscape for a new century. Liberal on social issues. Solidly in support of the liberal government programs delivered in those earlier times. Yet hamstrung by debt and highly skeptical about expansive government.

“On cultural issues, the direction the country is moving is more progressive,” said Will Marshall, president of the centrist Progressive Policy Institute. “But that’s less clear on economic issues.”

Read the rest of Lightman’s piece here.