(Mark Pellin, Headline USA) After years of infiltration into the mainstream by leftist-driven cancel cultists, increasing censorship of conservative voices and lingering impacts from tyrannical COVID lockdowns and mandates, traditional American values have taken a nosedive.
The importance of patriotism, religious faith and having children, in particular, have plummeted, according to a new Wall Street Journal-NORC poll.
Patriotism took one of the hardest hits, dropping from 70% of respondents in 1998 who said it was very important to them, to 38% in the WSJ survey taken earlier this month. Those numbers dipped even further for adults under the age of 30, with only 23% saying patriotism was very important to them personally, compared with 59% of seniors ages 65 or older.
The results fell in line with views about America’s stature on the world stage, with only 21% saying they thought it “stands above all countries in the world”.
The relevance and importance of religion took a similar plunge, falling from 62% to 39%. At the same time, the importance of having children dropped from 59% to 30%, while the importance of community involvement plunged from 62% to 27%.
The importance of money, meanwhile, jumped from 31% to 43%, combined with nearly 40% of respondents who said their financial situation has gotten worse over the last few years. A staggering 78% said they had low confidence that “life for our children’s generation will be better than it has been for us.”
“These differences are so dramatic, it paints a new and surprising portrait of a changing America,” pollster Bill McInturff told the WSJ. “Perhaps the toll of our political division, COVID and the lowest economic confidence in decades is having a startling effect on our core values.”
The WSJ-NORC poll showed significant variances on social issues, depending on political party.
Slightly more than 50% of Republicans said businesses have gone too far promoting racial and ethnic diversity, compared to only 7% of Democrats. Similarly, nearly 70% of Republicans said society has gone overboard in accepting transgender people, while nearly 60% of Democrats said society hasn’t done enough.
