While it wasn’t the biggest news last week, Gallup made headlines with a poll that found social conservatism had risen to its highest level in a decade.
The number of Americans who say they are conservative on social issues has increased to 38% from 33% in 2022 and 30% in 2021, while the number who classify themselves as socially liberal has increased from This decreased from 34% in two years to 29%.
But is it really true? Is social conservatism on the rise?
Gallup’s somewhat surprising conclusion comes from a single question: “Thinking about social issues, do you consider your views on social issues to be ‘conservative,’ ‘moderate,’ or ‘liberal?'” was based on.
What exactly are people thinking when asked about their ideological orientation toward “social issues” (as opposed to “economic issues”)?
Many scholars define a social problem as a type of problem that affects many people in a society, and with the exception of the post office name, almost every issue is considered a social problem for politicians. It has become.
Some scholars provide specific lists such as “substance abuse, discrimination, overpopulation, climate change, bullying, access to education and health care, violence, poverty, economic inequality, unemployment, and minimum wage.” and many other lists.
Personally, I would like to place poverty, inequality, unemployment, and minimum wages within an orthogonal dimension, perhaps labeled “economic problems.”
But no matter what the social issue is, it is impossible to imagine voters referring to an up-to-date tally of their positions on all these issues in order to assess the ideology of the social issue.
A more succinct expression of the social problem was the slur that 1972 Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern was an “acid, amnesty, abortion” candidate, where “acid” meant support for marijuana legalization. , and “amnesty” referred to support for marijuana legalization, which referred to support for his welcome. Vietnam-era draft evader.
More recently, former Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) distilled social issues into the slogan “Crime, Guns, and Homosexuals.” (He agrees with his first two and disagrees with the third.)
Have Americans become more conservative on these concise lists of social issues?
In the latest Gallup poll on the issue, support for marijuana legalization remained at an all-time high of 68%.
When it comes to abortion, Pew’s data is also clear: 61% say it should be legal at least in most cases, matching an all-time high.
G-d is not a “problem,” although there is abundant evidence of a relationship between traditional religion and political conservatism. According to Gallup, most Americans believe in G-d (81%), but that number is at an all-time low, with membership in a house of worship at just 47%.
When it comes to guns, the evidence is slightly less clear. In the 10 years since Marist pollsters first asked the question, more people say controlling gun violence is more important (60 percent) than protecting gun rights (38 percent) It is the maximum.
A Fox News poll found that 81% support raising the legal age to purchase a gun to 21 and 77% support a 30-day waiting period for purchases, which is on par with or below record highs. exceeds.
But 87% support background checks for all gun buyers and 61% support a ban on assault weapons, down 4 and 6 points from previous highs.
In Gallup’s more general question, 57% said gun laws should be stricter, 9 to 10 points below the highs reached earlier this decade.
Finally, on gay rights, the Public Religion Research Institute last year found a record 79% support for laws prohibiting discrimination against LGBTQ+ people. Gallup has recorded the highest level of support ever (71 percent) for the once-controversial same-sex marriage.
Transgender issues have recently moved onto the public agenda, but there have been some setbacks as the Republican Party has launched vicious attacks on transgender people.
For example, a Gallup poll found that the number of people who believe transgender athletes should only compete on teams that match their assigned sex at birth has increased by 7 points over the past two years, and that changing gender is morally wrong. The number of people who think this is wrong increased by 4 points to 55%.
That is, Americans express liberal views on most important social issues, and in many cases there is a growing liberal majority.
A majority rejects conservative views on guns, but the level fluctuates depending on the poll’s proximity to the massacre.
And Americans are only beginning to grapple with transgender issues, which have only recently entered the public agenda.
Gallup’s headline-grabbing question assumes that there is some kind of consensus on a set of social issues — there really isn’t — and that people are asking how their views on those issues have evolved. I have insight into this, but I don’t.
Melman is president of the Melman Group, which has helped elect 30 U.S. senators, 12 governors and dozens of members of the House of Representatives. Mr. Mellman served as a pollster for the Senate Democratic leadership for more than 20 years as president of the American Association of Political Consultants, is a member of the association’s Hall of Fame, and is chairman of the Israel Democratic Majority Party.
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