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WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Gallup's annual measurement of how Americans describe their views on social issues finds social liberals nearly tying with social conservatives for the fifth straight year. This is a change from 2001 through 2012 when social conservatives had the clear lead, including by 17-percentage-point margins in 2009 and 2010.

In Gallup's latest update, conducted May 3-7, 34% of Americans describe their views as conservative or very conservative while 30% identify as liberal or very liberal. Another 34% call themselves moderate and 2% are unsure. Gallup measures Americans' ideology on social issues annually as part of its Values and Beliefs survey, conducted each May.

Democrats' Fueling Rise in Social Liberalism

The increase in social liberalism has not been universal, but has occurred mainly among Democrats. The percentage of Democrats describing themselves as socially liberal increased fairly steadily from 36% in 2001 to 53% 2015 where it has since held.

By contrast, Republicans' propensity to identify as socially liberal has hardly changed, consistently registering around 10%.

In order to see whether the liberal shift in Democrats' social views is universal within the Democratic ranks, or limited to certain subgroups, Gallup has grouped its annual data into four time periods, allowing for larger sample sizes to evaluate the trends in Democratic subgroups. The earliest time period is from 2001 through 2005 when an average 37% of Democrats identified as socially liberal. The most recent period is from 2015 to 2017 when the figure held at 53%.

As shown in the accompanying table, social liberalism has risen among all major demographic subgroups of Democrats, as well as in the four main regions of the country. However, there are some notable differences:

Democrats' Views on Social Issues -- % Liberal

Implications

The increase in social liberalism in the U.S. seen since the early 2000s is the result of increasing liberalism among Democrats, and particularly among white, more-educated and older Democrats. The changes by age mean that various age groups of Democrats are now in greater political alignment. However, the changes by education and race have widened the divide on social issues between Democrats with and without college degrees, as well as between white and black Democrats.

This doesn't necessarily mean Democrats are at odds with each other. Indeed, despite the widening gaps along race and education lines, 89% of Democrats supported the Democratic Party's nominee for president in 2016. However, as Democratic leaders debate how to redefine the party post-President Barack Obama these data suggest that moving any further to the left on social issues could risk alienating Democrats with lower levels of education.

Those are the kinds of voters President Donald Trump might try to attract in a second-term bid, particularly if his GOP base is faltering. On the other hand, with most of these lesser-educated Democrats describing themselves as moderate on social issues rather than conservative, that would be a hard sell.

Historical data are available in Gallup Analytics.

The latest national results are based on telephone interviews conducted May 3-7, 2017, with a random sample of 1,011 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is 4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.

All reported margins of sampling error include computed design effects for weighting.

Result based on combined years have larger sample sizes

Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 70% cellphone respondents and 30% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by time zone within region. Landline and cellular telephone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods.

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Social Liberals Nearly Tie Social Conservatives in U.S. | Gallup - Gallup

The United States is evolving into a one-party country; that being Republican with support from independents and pro-Trump Democrats. The once proud party that cared for and supported the working middle-class, union workers and minorities, has decimated long-standing traditions and plunged itself into a sewer of antipathy and vulgarity. They sail merrily and rudderless toward the insanity of the ultra-left, socialism and political correctness.

It has become a party of destruction, hypocrisy, hate and obstruction. There is no denying that. And there is no end in sight. In a few short months, we will be blessed with the mid-term elections where Republicans will win a super-majority in the Senate. Contributors to the Democrats will be pouring millions of dollars into slimy, snarky attack ads.

All the self-centered, malignantly narcissistic celebrities will return spewing their vile hatred and morbid sophomoric soliloquies. I imagine we will even see our former president and former secretary of state on the stump for the liberals.

None of that mattered in 2016 and certainly will not matter in 2018. To make matters worse, the liberal virus appears to have infected a few Republicans who have concluded their egos are more important than their loyalty to the country, the president and our Grand Old Party.

I am comforted however, with the knowledge that time wounds all heels.

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Letter: Liberals infecting GOP - Quad City Times

Checks are being made to see if Chisholm MP Julia Banks has Greek citizenship. Photograph: Mike Bowers for the Guardian

The Liberal party says it has been given confirmation by the Greek embassy that the Victorian Liberal lower house MP, Julia Banks, is not a dual citizen, and has no entitlement to citizenship.

The confirmation came after questions were raised about whether Banks may have had Greek citizenship conferred on her a development which could have triggered a by-election in the seat of Chisholm.

Earlier on Friday, Liberal sources told Guardian Australia the state party organisation in Victoria was agitated about Banks potentially having a dual citizenship, and checks were being made on her status.

Speaking to Guardian Australia on Friday from London, the Victorian Liberal MP said she was born in Australia, her parents were Australian citizens at the time of her birth and she had never taken up Greek citizenship.

Those facts notwithstanding checks were made to ensure she had not acquired Greek citizenship by descent.

Late on Friday, a spokesman for the Liberal party issued a statement saying Banks was in the clear. We have received confirmation from the Greek embassy that according to records, Julia Banks is not registered as a Greek citizen and also is not entitled as a Greek citizen.

Guardian Australia has contacted the Greek embassy for confirmation.

The question mark over Banks followed a tumultuous week where the resources minister, Matt Canavan, stepped down from Cabinet because he discovered he was a dual citizen of Italy, and serious questions remain about the status of the One Nation senator, Malcolm Roberts.

The government is already facing a high court proceeding over one of its lower house MPs, David Gillespie, with concerns he may have an indirect financial interest in the Commonwealth, which, like dual citizenship, is grounds for disqualification under section 44 of the constitution.

There will be a directions hearing on the Gillespie case in August, with substantive hearings expected before the end of the year.

The Turnbull government holds a majority in the lower house of just one seat.

Banks won her seat of Chisholm against the political tide from Labor at the last federal election, and Liberals fear the government would not have held the seat at a by-election in the current political climate.

Once parliament resumes in August after the winter break, the Senate will refer the cases of Canavan and the two Green senators, Scott Ludlam and Larissa Waters, who resigned after discovering they held dual citizenships, to the high court for deliberation.

If no one challenges Robertss eligibility in the meantime, it is possible that either the government, or Labor, the Greens and some cross benchers, could also move to refer the One Nation senator to the high court as well.

Government sources have suggested it is unlikely they would join Roberts to the other cases, given it would be provocative. Labor is yet to determine its position on that as a course of action.

The Greens leader Richard Di Natale said he would support referring Roberts to the high court. We are going to refer Scott and Larissa, and One Nation should also do the decent thing and refer Malcolm Roberts.

He said in the event One Nation failed to do the decent thing, the Greens would happily join Labor and any interested crossbenchers in sending Roberts case to the court.

NXT leader Nick Xenophon told Guardian Australia on Friday he was also open to referring Roberts to the high court in the event constitutional law experts thought there were valid questions for him to answer.

Xenophon said such a referral should not happen carelessly but it should certainly happen if there was any prospect of a constitutional breach.

Roberts has changed his story about dual citizenship on a couple of occasions, but he told Sky News on Thursday he had written to British officials on 1 May last year asking if he was a UK citizen.

After not getting a reply, he wrote again on 6 June, just before Senate nominations closed, saying if he had British citizenship, he fully renounced it. Ive taken all steps that I reasonably believe necessary, Roberts told Sky News.

But it has emerged the British high commission did not confirm the renunciation until December six months after he nominated as a Senate candidate.

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Liberal Party confirms Victoria MP Julia Banks is not a Greek citizen - The Guardian

Washington Times

Liberals, conservatives jointly decry university 'safe spaces' Washington Times Celebrities and Congress members decried free speech crackdowns, such as the University of California, Berkeley canceling Ann Coulter's appearance. (Associated Press) more >. Print. By Emma Ayers - The Washington Times - Thursday, July 27, 2017. Adam Carolla on College Snowflakes: 'We Need the Adults to Start Being Adults'YouTube all 27 news articles »

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Liberals, conservatives jointly decry university 'safe spaces' - Washington Times

Recently on HBOs Real Time, Bill Maher had this to say about the recent attack on Republican legislators: We would never really think this would happen on the left. We think of the right as the people who pick up guns and do crazy things like this.

And thats just what they think. Liberals are peaceful and conservatives are violent. Even those who take pride in their political incorrectness repeat it. But you dont have to be an American historian to know how little it holds up to the facts.

Every year on the anniversary of JFKs assassination, media people talk about right-wingers in Dallas. But the real shooter, Lee Harvey Oswald, was a Soviet sympathizer. And Robert Kennedys killer was a Palestinian radical.

Last year at the Super Bowl, America watched Beyonces half-time tribute to the Black Panthers, who loved their guns as much as any NRA fanatic, and used them enthusiastically.

The media did everything they could to make us forget about former President Barack Obamas friendship with fellow Chicagoans Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, both members of the bomb-wielding Weather Underground. This months Puerto Rican Day Parade controversy resurrected the 1970s leftist terrorist group the FALN. Today we have the Antifa, whose black mask image has become an emblem of America 2017.

And just last month, Obama appeared on video at the Songwriters Hall of Fame to help induct Jay-Z, who once wrote these lines in his song Money, Cash, Hoes:

Money cash hoes money cash chicks what

Sex murder and mayhem romance for the street

Only wife of mines is a life of crime ...

Jay, you have been inspiring, Obama said, but he didnt mention how the millions of young men whove listened to Jay-Z and other rappers have been affected by lyrics such as: Now if I kill you I probably do ten in the box/Come down on appeal then Im killin your pops (Reservoir Dogs).

It takes a strange act of the mind to overlook leftist violence in the American present and recent past. Its as if attributing deep hate to right-leaning people was a drug. An obvious addict is Bill Moyers, the former LBJ operative whos made a career out of sanctimonious exposes of conservative wrath. A few years ago, he spoke of how Conservative Talk Radio Incites Domestic Terrorism & Hate and last year during the campaign he warned:

Trump and his ilk would sweep the promise of America into the dustbin of history unless they are exposed now to the disinfectant of sunlight, the cleansing torch of truth. Nothing else can save us from the dark age of unreason that would arrive with the triumph of Donald Trump.

Whether its real (the softball shooter) or make-believe (Kathy Griffin), liberal violence in contemporary America is a fact. It would seem to be a natural focus for Moyers campaign against political hatred. But at his web site one can only find brief notices of the shooting in Alexandria, Va., that emphasize the bipartisan nature of wrath in the United States, citing another story on potential incitement of political violence by Democrats and Republicans, the right and the left, as well as a population research finding that Republicans and Democrats were indistinguishable in their support for political violence.

This all sounds like a cross-political appeal to reason, but in truth, its an effective way to push the liberal-peace and conservative-violence meme. When a lunatic with right-wing opinions goes on a rampage, it says something about the essence of conservatism. When a lunatic with left-wing opinions acts, it summons forth bipartisan expressions of civility.

Conservative hate is conservative, but liberal hate isnt liberal at all.

Republicans and conservatives should recognize the across-the-divide call for unity as a hustle. The next time a right-wing crazy picks up his gun, the one-sided denunciations of conservative hate will come once more. Liberals pay themselves a compliment when they attribute vice to their adversaries, and they double down on back-patting when they (putatively) rise above politics after one of their own commits violence. Conservatives shouldnt help them do it.

They should instead proclaim that liberalism circa 2017 is not give peace a chance.

It has a malicious streak, and too many liberals dont just despise President Trump and everyone who voted for him, but also take pleasure in their spite.

Mark Bauerlein is an English professor at Emory University. He wrote this for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Readers may email him at engmb@emory.edu.

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Mark Bauerlein: Stop ignoring violence by liberals - La Crosse Tribune