Summary
- A newly released poll shows a worrying partisan gap in values.
- Democrats rank patriotism dead last in list of values. Republicans put patriotism first.
- The way forward may be less about finding middle ground and more about transmitting traditional American ideas.
Only 6% of Democrats think that “patriotism” is important for the country.
That was one of the unnerving findings of a recently released Gallup national survey about American values that highlighted the conflict of visions that defines modern politics.
Gallup led its report on the survey with the seemingly heartening idea that three-quarters of Americans can “identify at least one value most Americans share,” but that’s grasping at straws a bit, as the summary admits.
The list included 12 values, most of which seem so universal they would be shared by pretty much any group of people the world over. The summary writers noted that the findings show that “there is little consensus on which values are widely shared, or which the country needs more of.”
On the list of 12 values, Democrats ranked patriotism as the lowest value and “equality” as the highest. Republicans were essentially the reverse, ranking patriotism as the highest value needed for the country and putting equality near the bottom of the list.
What’s impressive to me about the absurdly low priority Democrats give to patriotism is that the question pertains to the country. One would think that if patriotism is valued at all, this would be the place for it. But nope.
Even some liberals jarred by the rise of the far Left found this statistic concerning.
“We need to confront the fact that anti-Americanism has become the default stance of the Democratic voter base,” left-leaning commentator Noah Smith wrote on X.
Smith not long ago promoted the idea that Democrats were reembracing patriotism at the end of the Biden era, but that was no more than a mirage.
To steelman the views of the Democrat base in this poll one could say that they just don’t think patriotism is important right now. But isn’t that a huge problem too?
It’s clear that much of the Left’s patriotism, such that it is, stems from their satisfaction in having like-minded people in the White House. The moment they lose power, their pride in America melts down to a shallow puddle.
Just as worrisome for our future, another Gallup poll found that Americans not only have very little faith in the government, but they don’t even trust each other. Only 51% of those surveyed trust “the American people as a whole,” the lowest number Gallup has recorded, though only marginally lower than last year.
What’s apparent in the data from the Gallup polls is that there is now a chasm of difference between Americans on core values and which ones are prioritized. The gap is so severe that it calls into question how America moves forward without devolving into two distinct regimes angrily living under one hopelessly divided government.
Patriotism was something we could fall back on, even when we disagreed over the extent to which we believed in this idea or that. When you throw in the dramatic increase in religious, ethnic, and racial diversity that has occurred over the last half-century it’s easy to see why America and so many other Western countries are powder kegs. People fall into pure tribal identitarianism or ideological solidarity. Trust disintegrates. Cynicism prevails.
So, we are faced with an enormous challenge. How does one move forward when these sorts of implacable battle lines are drawn? During the Civil War, George Washington’s Mount Vernon was neutral ground, a small recognition of our origin during a catastrophic attempt at national divorce.
Today we may not even have that amount of shared connection as the flag and symbols of our country no longer bind us together.
Right now, we must accept this reality for what it is. But we shouldn’t accept that this is inevitably our future. Is the answer to choosing between patriotism and a lack of patriotism meeting in the middle? No.
The answer, I believe, is to double down on the values once shared that brought America to its zenith: pride in our past, Americanism in our schools, and an unrepentant devotion to the great nation the Founders built and sent along its way.
Many who now live in America find these things contemptible. So be it. Arguing them out of this position will likely be fruitless.
All we can do now is provide a compelling alternate vision. Ensure that we paint a picture of a better future for young Americans whose views haven’t hardened. Build institutional strength so that we can transmit these ideas as wide and as deeply as possible.
The only way out is through, as they say.
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[ H/T The Daily Signal ]
