I’ve been watching and participating in the political marketplace for the better part of five decades. From campaigns at the federal, state and local levels to town halls, national crises and local issues, I can confidently say I have trodden through the public square of ideas, political discourse and disagreement many, many times.

For the better part of my career, I both agreed with and subscribed to a political axiom established soon after Ronald Reagan was elected president — that the nation was a center-right country. Put another way, on balance, Americans tilted in their ideology, their belief structure and value sets with a more conservative bias. That was especially true on social issues such as family, faith and virtue. Pew and other reputable research organizations agreed, posting many studies that affirmed this leaning based on demographics, income, church attendance and a host of other variables.

To be clear, this penchant was more than just the social preferences of Americans. The center-right slant on balance could be said of how America voted through much of the 80s, 90s and even into the 2000s. George W. Bush won his reelection in 2004, for example, with a dominant run through the South and Sunbelt, leaning on an anti-gay agenda. Even President Barack Obama struggled with the issue of same-sex unions during his first term.

But that core tenet of American ideology has fundamentally shifted. And the election of 2024 could well cement the recognition that the country has now pivoted in a clear and demonstrable way toward the center left. It is a shift as stark as it has been quick.

America today is more diverse, older, less white, less religious and less loyal to the institutions this nation was founded upon. That’s not a criticism as much as it is a reflection of a post-modern society teeming with independence, less tethered to traditional morality and more loyal to a new belief structure of “if it feels good, then it must be right.”

Like many cultural changes before it, the center-left realignment traces its roots back to social issues, incubated in America’s urban centers and nurtured in a climate where social media only placed more distance between us and our neighbors. Cultural leaders didn’t raise binary questions such as, “Is this wrong?” or challenge certain issues, like gender, for fear of offending individuals. In some respects, these shifts honored what contributed to America’s greatness — private property rights and the belief structure of “Well, so long as they do that in the privacy of their own home, who am I to question it?”

The institutions that contribute to the building blocks of society — schools, family, worship centers, culture centers, universities — turned a blind eye. Or at best, they failed to see the cumulative toll such “tolerance” would take on the public, all the while ushering in a progressive wave that only grew more coordinated and sophisticated by the day. Further, the center-left mindset has seeped into the American political class. Voters no longer gasp when elected officials defy morality, do drugs, support terrorist organizations, sheepishly endorse rioting, question America’s role in the world, deface American forefathers or change history to suit new narratives.

When the Democratic Party — a party that once vehemently argued that abortions should be “safe, legal and rare” — now has a faction within it that celebrates the practice through mobile abortion and vasectomy clinics on the site of its national political convention in Chicago last month, you know a tectonic shift in American political ideology is on full display.

So what does it all mean? That’s more difficult to predict. For one, expect to see more non-traditional candidates pursuing public office, espousing values on issues of gender and sexuality that completely defy where Americans are personally but that they are willing to accept publicly.

Have we gotten the society and the culture we allowed, and perhaps welcomed, for fear of offending others? Are we to blame for this new political left that believes more in uniformity and not American unity? Are we willing to suspend fundamental, universal truths simply because an emerging class calls that old-fashioned and outdated?

Yes, this new American center-left seems to be here to stay and will only grow unless some equally concerned segment of society steps forth to challenge its basic underpinnings and belief structure.

Yet I remain hopeful. There is a Greater Force quietly working still, in the midst of all that seems to have drifted away. And redemption of our great country can fall on us. That Sovereign once told his remnant who had remained faithful to Him in the Old Testament [2 Chronicles 7:14], “if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

I believe America’s best days are ahead of us. When we recognize what made this nation and her people great, that we are all created in the image of a living God and should respect our fellow brothers and sisters, then healing and restoration can begin.

A reminder of what the Sovereign wrote in the Psalms: “And call on me in your day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor Me.”

Armstrong Williams (www.armstrongwilliams.com; @arightside) is a political analyst, syndicated columnist and owner of the broadcasting company, Howard Stirk Holdings. He is also part owner of The Baltimore Sun.