American Values, National Identity Questioned Following WSJ-NORC Survey
Summary from the AllSides News Team
A Wall Street Journal-NORC poll surveying Americans’ values found a sharp decline in the importance of patriotism and religion and an increase in the importance of money, leading to speculation on what the data reveals about American national identity.
Decline in American Exceptionalism: A writer for the New York Post linked the poll’s findings to Soviet Russia, determining that “by ripping America’s focus away from God and into materialistic class warfare, Lenin’s American pals are winning.” The piece claimed the American education system is partially to blame, stating schools are “teaching kids to despise their birthrights” through critical race theory.
An Unsurprising Shift: A writer for the New York Times Opinion determined the results were “startling” but pushed back on narratives of moral decay in America, writing, “berating people for thinking wrong is itself wrong thinking, not to mention unproductive.” The writer determined Americans’ increased value of money made sense given rising costs of living, and linked decline in religion to a widespread decline in religion across developed nations, stating, “Americans are just going with the flow.”
Doubted The Results: An opinion piece in The Hill (Center Bias) questioned conclusions drawn from the poll, determining the drop in patriotism was a result of changing polling methodology allowing respondents to answer questions more honestly, stating, “perhaps the anonymity of online communication has shown us we aren’t exactly who we thought we were and that there is more diversity of thought in America than stereotypes would suggest.”
Featured Coverage of this Story
From the Right
America’s soft revolution away from everything that’s made us greatAn alarming new poll shows America’s having its own version of a Soviet revolution.
Russian revolutionary murderer Vladimir Lenin proclaimed, “Morality is entirely subordinate to the interests of class war. Everything is moral that is necessary for the annihilation of the old exploiting social order and for uniting the proletariat.”
As Lenin contrived his own morality, he and his ideological compatriots annihilated what they perceived as antiquated, dangerous vestiges of human civilization.
Their blind zealotry emboldened them to commit mass murder through dehumanizing people who claimed traditional values.
From the Center
America Pulls Back From Values That Once Defined It, WSJ-NORC Poll FindsPatriotism, religious faith, having children and other priorities that helped define the national character for generations are receding in importance to Americans, a new Wall Street Journal-NORC poll finds.
The survey, conducted with NORC at the University of Chicago, a nonpartisan research organization, also finds the country sharply divided by political party over social trends such as the push for racial diversity in businesses and the use of gender-neutral pronouns.
Some 38% of respondents said patriotism was very important to them, and 39% said religion was very important. That was...
From the Left
Money Is Up. Patriotism and Religion Are Down.“I just want a nice job with a nice amount of money and a nice car and a nice house and stuff like that.” — Nate, 14, in a focus group conducted by the Opinion section of The New York Times
Nate, you speak for America. This week, The Wall Street Journal published a survey showing steep declines since 1998 in the shares of Americans who said patriotism and religion were very important to them. There were also big declines in the value placed on having children and being involved...
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