Politico Magazine is out with its annual list of “thinkers, doers and visionaries.” Several friends of this publication are on it, including Oren Cass, Veronique de Rugy, Charles Murray, my wife, and me. Politico asked me to write an article to accompany the feature, on whether America is moving left.

Reading today’s headlines, it would be easy to get the impression that the country is moving—even galloping—left. Same-sex marriage, something only the most progressive Democrats supported a decade ago, is now legal in every state. Marijuana legalization has gone from a punch line to a majority preference. Young people tilt left; one poll last year found that 42 percent of them prefer socialism to capitalism. . . .
The real defect in the theory that America is moving left is that the polling evidence does not back it up. The country might not like the GOP, but it is generally not abandoning conservative views.

I go on to look at public opinion on guns, unions, regulation, abortion, the size of government, and inequality.