OPINION:
Corporate executives ensconced in isolated high-income enclaves around the country believe the American public shares their new “woke” values. Relying on advice from staffers hired out of progressive colleges and universities strengthens this belief. It is this belief that persuaded Bud Light, the Los Angeles Dodgers, Target and others to promote causes that, as it turns out, aren’t viewed as favorably by their customers as they expected.
Beer drinkers, most baseball fans and discount shoppers don’t live in gated communities guarded by private security firms and didn’t graduate from elite colleges. They have little if anything in common with elites who are promoting values and causes to please their peers, not their customers. The result has proved economically disastrous for industries from professional sports to retail to beer as customers abandon them for brands that refrain from touting values they don’t share.
Still, many in the elite world, like the “woke” politicians to whom they contribute, assume a changing population will increasingly applaud the direction they are taking. Maybe, but recent findings from Gallup suggest that the ranks of a customer base dominated by men and women Hillary Clinton once dismissed as deplorables is as strong as ever and is unamused by their efforts to mix toxic politics with the products they buy.
Data from last month’s Gallup annual Values and Beliefs Survey measuring attitudes on social and economic issues suggest the traditional values the nation’s elite believe to be passe may be more deeply rooted than they think. The Gallup results will no doubt be ignored or dismissed as an outlier by progressive politicians and policymakers, but they do so at their own peril.
First and most interestingly, at a time when politicians and the media are acting as if Americans are embracing their increasingly “woke” values, Gallup finds the public has become more conservative on social issues in the last two years.
Gallup pollsters asked respondents two years ago and this year a simple question: “Thinking about social issues, would you say your views on social issues are very conservative, conservative, moderate, liberal or very liberal?”
In 2021, 33% of those polled described themselves as conservative or very conservative on these issues; this year, that number is 38%. Those who describe themselves as liberal or very liberal on social issues has dropped 5 points, from 34% to 29%.
These numbers and others in the Gallup findings should worry the nation’s increasingly progressive politicians and policymakers. Even as President Biden and his supporters in Congress press for higher spending, increased regulations and a more centralized national government, the nation’s citizens in the poll expressed growing support for conservative economic views. Conservatives have enjoyed an advantage over liberals on economic issues over the years, although this has had little impact on the direction of federal government policy.
As dissatisfaction with Biden administration policies and the state of the economy grows, however, these numbers may result in more Republican strength at the polls next year than pundits predict.
While about 40% of voters have over the years identified as conservative or very conservative on economic issues, 46% so identify in the current survey. More importantly, 36% of independents identify as conservative, while only 16% describe themselves as economic liberals.
There is other good news for conservatives in Gallup’s results and other recent polls. Progressives seem happy with reports that fewer Americans attend church or profess a belief in God than in years past, but fully 80% of Americans are believers, and that number may be growing as Americans grow older.
The common wisdom these days is that younger people increasing skeptical about both organized churches and religion itself will carry that into their later years, leading to a steady decline in church attendance and the number of Americans who consider religion important. That, however, has been called into question by recent studies including one from the University of Chicago demonstrating that as young people age, they become increasingly religious.
Meanwhile, Gallup also found a growing public fear that the nation is in moral decline. One can sense a coming backlash against the brands, governments and institutions responsible. There is a distinct possibility that America’s traditional values may be far more resistant to the change on which progressives are banking than they believe.
Progressives may remain comfortably isolated in the country clubs, elite neighborhoods and upscale vacation spots to which they retreat to hold political and marketing strategy meetings. But in the real America, the future may be brighter for the conservative values than they think.
• David Keene is editor-at-large at The Washington Times.
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