Paul Krugman (firewall) makes an extraordinary claim (emphasis mine).

Right now the talk of the political chattering classes is a report from the Pew Research Center showing a precipitous decline in Republican support. In 2002 equal numbers of Americans identified themselves as Republicans and Democrats, but since then the Democrats have opened up a 15-point advantage.

The chattering classes might be talking about the Pew Research Center polling results privately but they’ll probably wait a few more election cycles before internalizing the numbers. After all, what can you do with numbers like this?

Consider, for example, the question of whether the government should provide fewer services in order to cut spending, or provide more services even if this requires higher spending. According to the American National Election Studies, in 1994, the year the Republicans began their 12-year control of Congress, those who favored smaller government had the edge, by 36 to 27. By 2004, however, those in favor of bigger government had a 43-to-20 lead.

Goodness gracious. What about this?

At the same time, the survey records further declines in traditional social attitudes. The poll finds greater public acceptance of homosexuality and less desire for women to play traditional roles in society.

Are you kidding me? And, most importantly:

The falloff in strong support for an active U.S. role in global affairs is consistent with other Pew surveys over the past two years showing a decline in support for internationalism among the public. In “America’s Place in the World,” conducted in the fall of 2005, 42% said they believed the U.S. should “mind its own business” internationally – the highest percentage expressing that sentiment since the mid-1990s, after the Cold War, and the mid-1970s, following the Vietnam War.

That survey found that the growth in isolationist sentiment was largely concentrated among Democrats. However, the values survey shows that both Democrats and Republicans are less likely to completely agree that the U.S. should take an active role on the world stage than they did four years ago. Similarly, the percentage of conservatives – regardless of party – who
strongly favor an active U.S. stance in world affairs has fallen from 53% to 39% since 2003; this is comparable to the decline in strong support among self-described liberals (11 points).

Fred Hiatt isn’t going to like that one.

The chattering classes consider it their duty to promote a rose-colored view of American meddling in the world, and Bush-boy is making their job hard work.

The American people are waking up…but the media, even if they are privately chattering about it, will not report on it. Their job is to put us back to sleep.

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