American conservative social values liberalizing
Hey, everyone knows that Americans are becoming more conservative. A recent Economist/YouGov poll even shows that around 30% of respondents believe they are more conservative over the last 10 years, and just under 20% believe they have become more liberal. Amongst Americans there was a similar spread in sentiment to the question of whether American politics have become more conservative or liberal.
Fair enough you’d say, no big surprise. But looking at specific policy issues, the results become less clear. The futility of defining politics of an individual or a nation along insanely restrictive concepts is also well demonstrated, as are the continued flux of uniquely American definitions for the terms “liberal” and “conservative”, that are at odds with the more static and historically defined definitions used in Europe.
Comparing the recent data against Gallup polls taken in the mid-nineties, the YouGov poll found that support for the death penalty has dropped overall by 14%, support for the legalization of
Cannabis increased by 15%, those saying that religion is “very important” in their own life dropped by 7%, support for legal gay relationships also increased by 3%.
Those favoring abortion under any circumstances did decrease by 4%, but those opposed to abortion under any circumstances also experienced a slight decrease, while total support for abortion under certain circumstances, a pretty widely defined category, increased by 3% to a 53% total. This seems to signify a slight moderation of views from the extremes, though a more detailed question on this subject would be welcome.
The actual shift towards more seemingly ‘liberal’ positions on issues, while people are at the same time self-identifying as more conservative, comes as less of a surprise with the results of the question as to whether respondents thought they were more or less liberal than their parents. 42% believed they were more liberal, while only 19% believed they were more conservative.
While American social values are undeniably liberalizing, the two economic issues explored by the poll offer mixed information with a dramatic drop in approval of unions, of 8%, as well as a drop of 10% of those who think they pay too much in taxes. These could easily boil down to the circumstances of a liberalized (in the non-confusing definition) economy–given the continued decline of union membership, the increase in sole-proprietorships and small partnerships, and the reduction in the tax burden.
All the same, do these results indicate an active political and cultural debate, and redefinition of views in America? It seems so. But a simpler and not incompatible explanation for much of the “schizophrenia” is the movement of boomers through the classic heart and mind principle of political philosophy.
If a man is not a socialist by the time he is 20, he has no heart.
If he is not a conservative by the time he is 40, he has no brain.
- orphaned quote
I’m always loathe to admit it, but you can boil almost anything down to demographics if you analyze it for long enough. As boomers age they more readily self-identify as conservatives while remaining much more liberal than their parents. I doubt that the hearts of many humans atrophy with age, but they undoubtedly find their expression through increasingly mature minds.
If you are an Economist subscriber you can download a pdf of the poll results here.