Gallup released another poll showing just how divided the nation remains on core values. When asked, “which values the country most needs today?,” Republicans ranked “patriotism” as number one while Democrats ranked “equality.” What is most alarming is that no shared value cracks fifty percent overall. Patriotism is only ranked in the top three shared values by 32 percent. (Freedom tops the list at only 38 percent).
Republicans rank patriotism as the most needed value today, while Democrats rank it lowest at just six percent.
Clearly, the results must be read in context. There are many values offered and ranking some lower does not mean that they have no or little value. It is a relative ranking of what the country most needed.
However, it shows (as found in other polls) how far the two parties are apart on their perspectives of the country at this moment in history.
The problem is that too many Democrats believe in “Animal House” democracy where all animals are created equal but some are more equal than others. Do the Democrats believe in equality of opportunity or equality of results. Seems to me that they want equality of results in spite of the lack of work to achieve those self same results.
Most individuals would likely see that their work and productivity would achieve some equality of results especially when totaled up through a lifetime of work. Others never even start the journey. The world flings tragedy, despair, bad luck, and missteps in your path and you have to respond. In the United States you have no excuses. You can hover in your hole and never emerge or you get out of the hole, wrestle with the tempest, and achieve something. But if you wait to have it all handed to you, I think you are going to have a long wait.
We all get flattened. It helps to learn that so that you can avoid or ride the next wave. It’s up to you.
“Democrats believe in “Animal House” democracy where all animals are created equal…” Wrong GEB, its from the book Animal Farm by Orwell.
A closer look at the Gallup data reveals an interesting fact. Normally, you might expect the independent voter data to correlate well with the average of the Democratic and Republican averages. And it does, with a correlation coefficient of about r = 0.85. However, the correlation is far higher (r = ~0.95) between the independent data and the geometric average between the Dem and Rep data. This is extraordinarily high. This implies that changes from Dem to Rep data occur in percentages in the Independent data rather than in jumps.
Action item: It could be that pollsters should incorporate geometric averages into their predictions rather than using arithmetic averages.
This pattern appears across the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P data, where the geometric average of the Dow and Nasdaq is highly correlated with the S&P – also about r = .95. Here, I used moving averages. This observation is not in the literature. I noted it some time back, but did not publish it.
Don its just a chart about personal preferences not the stock market.
Turley: “However, it shows (as found in other polls) how far the two parties are apart on their perspectives of the country at this moment in history.”
Equality is not a ‘value.’
Prove it.
Pretty much says it all. Dems hold fast to “all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.”
I think we’re missing an important distinction here. Gallup asked what values Americans believe the country needs most, not what values they personally hold. Choosing equality over patriotism doesn’t mean someone isn’t patriotic.
But here’s what I found more interesting. Gallup also found that 79% of Americans believe respecting different values is more important than sharing the same values.
Now look at this comment section. If there’s nothing to fight about, somebody will find something.
Knowing a value, professing a value, and actually practicing it are three different things. We seem pretty good at the first two. It’s the third that ought to concern us, especially in a republic that depends on citizens capable of governing themselves.
Good lord, what a heap of psychobabble Olly.
No, Olly is right on this. The ‘values’ issue is more nuanced than the black and white process the poll seems to make it out to be. Olly’s is on point about the general state of the nation’s perspectives on what values are important. Focusing on just the extreme obscures the bigger consensus of those in the middle.
He’s not wrong here.
Thanks X. I think there’s considerably more common ground among Americans than our political arguments would suggest.
Common ground? That’s exactly what the poll revealed.
I agree Olly, it’s the extremism that makes it difficult to see it and that is the point I believe that most extremists on both sides won’t see because they’ve been so entrenched in their extreme views for so long.
It will take a long time to correct itself and I do believe that can only start when Trump leaves office. Too much damage has been done to be able to correct with just one administration or highly divided Congress. When compromise is no longer seen as a dirty word or action then the real progress can occur.
“both sides won’t see because they’ve been so entrenched in their extreme views for so long.”
Well said George, you and Olly are so extreme (self professed intellectuals) that you can’t see reality.
X, here’s where I part company with you. I think you’re giving far too much power to one man and not nearly enough responsibility to the citizens themselves. Our current divide didn’t start with Trump and it won’t end with him leaving office.
We have agency. We don’t have to wait for Trump to leave office to stop treating political disagreement as an invitation to fight. We can choose to find common ground right now.
Look at this exchange. You and I rarely agree, yet here we are, finding something we agree on. Neither of us needed a change in administration to make that happen.
That’s where recovery starts. With us, not Washington.
Agency? Common ground? Agree? Wait, wait, wait. Huh! Olly is saying, now that he’s talking with George, previously vociferous opponents, they have, today, here and now, set in motion the reunification of the nation. Honestly, what a delusion.
OLLY,
Well said.
This divide started long before Trump rode the escalator down. MAGA was an idea before Trump turned it into a niffty campaign slogan. Will be around long after he is gone.
Some have commented they saw it starting in the 60s.
Upstate, exactly. And there’s plenty of evidence to support that.
In June 2014, more than two years before Trump was elected, Pew Research Center published a study on political polarization. In 1994, 17% of Republicans had a very unfavorable view of Democrats. By 2014, that had risen to 43%. Among Democrats, the number went from 16% to 38%.
Pew concluded that partisan hostility had more than doubled over those twenty years.
Here’s the study: <i>https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2014/06/12/political-polarization-in-the-american-public/</i>
Trump didn’t create this divide, although we can certainly debate his contribution to it. And his departure won’t magically fix it either.
My point remains that we have agency. We don’t need permission from Washington to stop treating our fellow citizens as enemies. That’s a choice we can make ourselves. And in a self-governing republic, we damn well ought to.
The Two Stooges digressing …
Not wrong you say George? You’re a pathological nutjob and liar. So the pseudo interpretation is accurate? Its listed in order of preference dummy, how can you interpret it any anything else?
” perspectives on what values are important.” Again, that’s because it’s listed in order of desirability. Any idiot can read it. But you two are extraordinary idiots.
You’re a prime example of what Olly is talking about and what the poll is showing. YOUR extremist view is the problem. It’s like a reflex rather than an actual constructive thought.
LOL! Thanks, been waiting for that George. You’re so childishly predictable.
Yeah, tell us about constructive thought George, how your lies are constructive.
My “constructive thought”: there’s one problem with your flighty comment George, no one polled me.
Gallup asked what values Americans believe the country needs most and the people responding to the poll expressed their thoughts accordingly. So where’s the problem?
The poll confirms what is already obvious to regular observers: the country is deeply polarized, and hyper-partisanship is at an all-time high. A look at data from sources like the Pew Research Center reveals how far both major parties have drifted from the political center over the last few decades, fundamentally changing the American political landscape.
The traditional Republican party of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush has largely been replaced by populist, nationalist, and religious conservative factions. We see this rightward drift in the modern party’s embrace of strict “America First” isolationist trade policies, hardline immigration stances like border walls, and a heavy legislative focus on Christian nationalist values in public education and healthcare. For many on the right, “patriotism” has increasingly taken on a nationalist tone that critics argue feels exclusive rather than unifying.
Conversely, the Democratic party has shifted steadily to the progressive left. This leftward drift is evident in the mainstreaming of policies that were once considered fringe, such as sweeping student loan cancellation, universal healthcare concepts like “Medicare for All,” massive government intervention to fight climate change via the Green New Deal, and an intense institutional focus on identity politics and systemic equity. For the left, “equality” has become the dominant framework, focused on reshaping institutions to protect marginalized groups.
While both sides have their ideological extremes, the collapse of the political center means that compromise is virtually impossible. Because the goalposts have moved so far to the extremes, any moderate or opposing viewpoint is instantly viewed by the other side as an existential threat.
Republicans want to exclude and segregate. Democrats want to include and integrate. Which is weird because it’s exactly the opposite of what ‘Democrats’ in the 60’s were for which are today’s Republicans. All that needs to happen for compromise to become the norm once again is for Trump to leave office. He’s been the one figure who has embraced polarization more than anyone. The nation has been hostage to a narcissist for far too long.
If you look at the polarization it began in the late 90s when the Democrats ran left and the GOP moved slightly left. Then the racial identity grievances began in earnest in 2008 (this is easily tracked through multiple polls) which further divided the country and pushed the Dems left. The GOP base revolted against the establishment GOP in 2010, which had been moving left, to push the GOP back to conservative ideals (individual liberty, fiscal responsibility, and safety) which for whatever reason are considered far-right.
The GOP establishment hated this and gave the base the horsemeat of Mitt Romney in 2012 then tried to push Jeb Bush down the base’s throat in 2016. Obama and the GOP establishment created Trump. They created the desire for America to be the primary focus of the elected American government (what a concept!). From 1988-2016 every elected President was more interested in globalization and offshoring (for the GOP it was argued that it was the ideal economic model that would lower costs, for the Dems it was the idea that the “lesser” jobs are for “lesser” people and Americans should have better jobs–both parties were completely wrong).
Democrats actively exclude and segregate. They’ve done it their entire existence. Today it is affirmative action, DEI, and minority contracts. Republicans want simply that “the way to end discrimination based on race is to end discrimination based on race.” I do not see how anyone can argue that the GOP wants to segregate and divide when they are ACTIVELY fighting to stop discrimination and division! Discrimination and division are part of the Democrat PLATFORM!
X – as always, your takes are long and language and tragically short on the application of any critical thinking at all. Although, I guess I can’t expect much from your horsemeat ChatGPT inputs. Garbage in garbage out.
DW,
First, the Republican party did not “move left” before 2010. Decades of data from sources like the Pew Research Center prove that the Republican party moved much further to the right than Democrats did to the left. The 2010 Tea Party wave wasn’t a return to traditional conservative values. Instead, it was the start of a populist movement. This new movement completely abandoned traditional conservative ideas like free trade, controlling government debt, and respecting the law. You cannot claim Trumpism is about “individual liberty” when its core ideas are built on government-controlled trade and extreme nationalism.
Second, you try to paint the Republican party as the true champion of civil rights, but that is a massive logical leap. Using the idea of “color-blindness” to destroy voting rights protections and ban diversity programs is not ending discrimination. It is just a deliberate effort to ignore existing inequalities and pretend they do not exist.
By calling programs that help minorities “segregation,” you are confusing the medicine with the disease. The modern populist right is just as obsessed with identity politics as the left. The only difference is that the right uses cultural anger and white nationalism to fire up its voters.
Finally, mocking someone else’s critical thinking while repeating simple talk-radio talking points is the real definition of “garbage in, garbage out.” If you are going to accuse others of lacking depth, you need to bring actual facts next time.
“mocking someone else’s critical thinking…” But you earned that distinction, here is the latest example: your “garbage out” (comments) is not “critical thinking” George, its outright delusion.
Republicans want to exclude and segregate. Democrats want to include and integrate. Really? Please George, tell us you don’t ingest mind expanding drugs.
Then this: “He’s been the one figure who has embraced polarization more than anyone.” And Obama didn’t? It was so bad under the demo-nazis in the USA that for eight years the Republicans controlled congress. Obama wasn’t polarizing?
Gawd you really are on drugs, aren’t you?
Let’s be honest: Barack Obama was only called “polarizing” because the right panicked over a Black man becoming president. Bigots did everything they could to paint him as a radical because they hated seeing him in the White House. It was that obvious.
The truth is that the Republican party does want to exclude and divide people, and Donald Trump made it much worse. Far-right extremists and nationalists have spent years crawling into the party. The old leaders let it happen because they wanted the extra votes. Now, white nationalists like Nick Fuentes are openly welcomed, and top Republican leaders refuse to condemn them. These are the exact same kinds of bigots who fought against civil rights in the 1960s. They just wear a different party label today.
I’m being honest, but you can’t write a sentence without lying. Panic? Blackman? Bigots? Hey, what drugs are you using?
Democratic equality. I want what you have without having to work for it.
Sounds just like capitalism: I can steal from you without repercussion.
Gee, “stealing” from someone is illegal. Voting for politicians to steal for you is called the basis of the Democrat party.
And the Republican party too. Ask Trump’s cronnies.
If that poll graphic is even close to accurate, how far down the road to losing the Republic — as Ben Franklin warned — are we?
But Franklin knew nothing of polling.
These choices appear to be carefully crafted to produce the desired result by appealing to known preferences. Honesty is a personal characteristic, but Freedom is not. Some view a country the same way as a person; some do not. This feeds the division rather than seeking to resolve it.
Are you saying there are unknown preferences? If so, what are they?
Can one can prefer honesty over dishonesty?
Then, freedom is not a personal preference? Then why are Americans fighting over restricted speech as opposed to unrestricted right i.e., freedom of speech.
No surprise here…
Yeah commies are never patriotic.
Should they be? Remember its a free country. No one forced you to be patriotic.