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What beliefs make someone a liberal?

Here at YouGov, we often take the direct approach and just ask Americans if they are liberal, conservative, or moderate. But 60 years ago, the conservative philosopher James Burnham said he had a more accurate way.

"Liberalism has no single, accepted and authoritative book or person or committee that is recognized as giving the final word: no Bible, Pope nor Presidium," Burnham wrote in his 1964 book Suicide of the West. "Nevertheless, liberalism does constitute in its own terms a fairly cohesive body of doctrine, cluster of feelings and code of practice."

Specifically, Burnham said he had devised a set of 39 sentences, each of them assertions about politics and ideology that people could either agree or disagree with ("without worrying over fine points," Burnham added).

Burnham's sentences include, "We always ought to respect the religious beliefs of others," "Steps toward world disarmament would be a good thing," and "Everyone has the right to equal pay for equal work."

Burnham said that self-defined liberals almost always agree with at least 85% of the statements, and often with a full 100% of them, while self-defined conservatives often disagree with "many or most of them."

To find out whether Burnham's assertions hold true in the 2020s, YouGov asked Americans whether they agreed with adapted versions of Burnham's sentences. We modernized some of the language, so respondents could focus on the content of the sentence and not old-fashioned phrasing. We also generalized a few sentences that directly described 1960s controversies to be more broadly applicable. And we dropped two of the sentences about 1960s controversies that couldn't be easily generalized.

We find most Americans (83%) strongly or somewhat agree with at least a majority of these 37 statements, including 72% of Americans who call themselves very conservative and 80% of those who say they're conservative but not very conservative. But Americans who call themselves liberal or very liberal agree with more statements, on average. 62% of those who say they're very liberal agree with at least 85% of the statements, as do 56% of those who say they're liberal but not very liberal. Only 26% of moderates, 12% of conservatives, and 8% of those who are very conservative agree with at least that many statements. (People who said they strongly or somewhat disagree with a statement, are not sure, or skip responding all are counted as having not agreed.)

Among liberals and moderates, there are only minor differences between the shares of the statements that younger and older Americans agree with. But 49% of conservatives under 45 agree with at least 70% of the statements, compared to 32% of conservatives 45 and older. (This includes both those whose ideology is very conservative and those whose ideology is conservative but not very conservative.)

Some of Burnham's statements are about equally likely to be agreed to by liberals and conservatives. Almost all in each group agree that "everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression," that "everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and expression," and that "everyone is entitled to their own opinion." Most also agree that "the national government should guarantee that all adult citizens, except for criminals and the insane, should have the right to vote." And equal shares of liberals and conservatives disagree that "if reasonable compensation is made, the government of a nation has the legal and moral right to seize private property within its borders, whether owned by citizens or foreigners."

But many of the other sentences show considerable differences in the shares of liberals and conservatives who agree. 59% of liberals and only 19% of conservatives agree that "progressive income and inheritance taxes are the fairest form of taxation." 81% of liberals and 46% of conservatives agree that "the chief sources of delinquency and crime are ignorance, discrimination, poverty and exploitation." And 96% of liberals and 61% of conservatives agree that "the government has a duty to provide for the ill, aged, unemployed and poor if they cannot take care of themselves."

You can see the full results for all 37 statements in this PDF, or in charts of the overall results or the results among liberals and conservatives.

See the results of this poll

Methodology: The March 4 - 6, 2026 poll was conducted among 1,108 U.S. adult citizens. Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel to be representative of U.S. adult citizens. A random sample (stratified by gender, age, race, education, geographic region, and voter registration) was selected from the 2019 American Community Survey. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, U.S. region, 2024 presidential vote, 2020 election turnout and presidential vote, baseline party identification, and current voter registration status. 2024 presidential vote, at time of weighting, was estimated to be 48% Harris and 50% Trump. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Baseline party identification is the respondent’s most recent answer given around November 8, 2024, and is weighted to the estimated distribution at that time (31% Democratic, 33% Republican). The margin of error for the overall sample is approximately 4%.

Image: Getty (zimmytws)

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