WSJ Poll Shows Decline in Americans Holding All Traditional US Values

“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.” —John Adams

“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labour to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and citizens.” —George Washington

“If you do not worship God, you worship something, and nine times out of ten it will be yourself.” —Venerable Fulton Sheen

“At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.” —Abraham Lincoln

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) just published a poll conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago, which found America “sharply divided by political party over social trends such as the push for racial diversity in businesses and the use of gender-neutral pronouns.” But that’s not all. People’s commitment to traditional American values like religion, family, and patriotism—the values that are absolutely necessary for the survival and recovery of our republic—has gone way down.

The only category where people’s value for it went up in importance was money, which tells you just how much danger America is in.

“Some 38% of respondents said patriotism was very important to them, and 39% said religion was very important. That was down sharply from when the Journal first asked the question in 1998, when 70% deemed patriotism to be very important, and 62% said so of religion.”

Just look at the massive drops from 2019 to today! In only four years, how much more perilous has the situation of the American republic become!

WSJ somewhat misdiagnosed the issue in my opinion. It indicated, for instance, that Trump’s political rise was a factor in damaging unity—that’s true, but mostly because leftists suddenly became way more open about their ideology, not because the divisive ideology didn’t exist before Trump. WSJ did not note that leftists have been actively trying to destroy religion and patriotism in schools, government, media, and other institutions for decades now. So, for instance, young people are much less likely to have the right values than older people, because they have gone through the leftist cycle of propaganda more so than older people.

“Aside from money, all age groups, including seniors, attached far less importance to these priorities and values than when pollsters asked about them in 1998 and 2019. But younger Americans in particular place low importance on these values, many of which were central to the lives of their parents.

Some 23% of adults under age 30 said in the new survey that patriotism was very important to them personally, compared with 59% of seniors ages 65 or older. Some 31% of younger respondents said that religion was very important to them, compared with 55% among seniors.

Only 23% of adults under age 30 said that having children was very important.”

The sexual revolution that started during the boomers’ time has apparently been a smashing success in that young people no longer get married or want to have children. In other words, we are literally committing societal suicide. Studies show that overpopulation is a myth and most countries around the world in Europe, the Americas, and Asia are heading for a massive population collapse. It’s not surprising, though, as young people are turning away from the Bible, which blesses marriage (Gen. 2:24, Matt. 19:5-6, John 2) and commands couples to be fruitful (Gen. 1:28).

Another mistake I think WSJ, or one of its respondents, made was in claiming that the rise of individualism is the problem. Actually, in America, we have had the opposite of individualism in recent years. There has been an increase in a very warped and distorted sort of individualism, which teaches that you are the only person who matters and that you should be as selfish as possible. That I have certainly seen increase in recent years. But Americans are absolutely more group thinkers than they have ever been in our history. Even conservatives are reactionaries now who tend to base their opinions on what the left believes (or doesn’t believe) rather than being independent thinkers.

And if Covid didn’t show us that the overwhelming majority of Americans are willing to do whatever they are told no matter how stupid it is, I don’t know what did. There was a time when the Covid lockdowns would never have worked because the majority of Americans would have risen up in revolt or simply refused to follow the rules. We need more individualism, not less individualism. Alexis de Tocqueville once observed that when he visited America, individualism prompted people to more service in the community. As we became more selfish, less religious, less of independent thinkers, and—yes—more controlled by Democrats (who have always consistently acted as the party of elitism and anti-constitutionalism from their earliest days), we lost that sense of obligation toward the community.

So what, ultimately, does this poll tell us? It tells us that even more than a political renewal, America desperately needs a religious and cultural renewal. As the Founding Fathers observed many times, without dedication to religion and patriotism America will fail. That’s why we’re in the situation we are in now, becoming a foreign-pandering joke and a domestic tyranny. It is up to us to decide if we are going to allow America to fail or if we will save America through a culture and spiritual revival.