New Poll Shows Americans "Just Not Into" Faith and Patriotism
Back in the 70’s, Chevrolet rolled out its “Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet” campaign ad. The ads depicted, and celebrated things that were quintessentially American. Drivers of cars other than Chevrolets might debate that part of it, but everything else, was all-American. And to go along with baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and fill in the name of your favorite 70’s American gas guzzler, we had traditional American values. Americans, at least the majority of us, believed that no one owed us anything. We believed in hard work, helping our neighbors, honesty, integrity, belief in God, and the knowledge that we were living in the greatest country on earth. Fast forward a few generations, and a few decades, and it seems that those things, notions that were uniquely American, are becoming less prevalent than they once were.
A recent Wall Street Journal/NORC poll may just be proving that to be true. The poll surveyed 1,019 Americans between March 1 and March 13. The results should be alarming to every American. The poll compared Americans’ attitudes towards faith and patriotism in 1998, to today. In 1998, 70% of Americans said that being patriotic was important to them. In 2023, that number has plummeted to a staggering 38%. Is it any wonder that many Americans are convinced that if China is not already eating our lunch, they will be shortly? Twenty-five years ago, as Americans were hearing the tawdry details of back-room trysts between the President of the United States and a 22-year-old intern, 62% of Americans said that their religious faith was important to them. Now, as reality TV and social media give Americans and everyone else the chance to air their dirty laundry for all to see, just 39% say faith is important.
We will come back to the possible explanations for this. Some other items worth noting in the poll, were the respondents’ reactions to questions involving race, gender, sexual orientation, having children, and having enough money. Many respondents said that not enough has been done in American society to promote equality between men and women. They also stated that they did not feel that enough had been done to promote equality for racial and ethnic minority groups, and for gays and lesbians not just in the business world, but at America’s universities. But interestingly, an even larger portion of respondents said the opposite. Forty-three percent of those respondents said that American society has gone above and beyond in accommodating transgender people. Thirty-three percent disagreed and said more should be done, and 25% said America was getting it about right. Declaring one’s pronouns did not go over well with respondents either. Fifty percent of respondents did not like having to “state their pronouns,” just 18% said they were all for it, and 32% said they were ok with it either way.
The age range of respondents went from 18 to 65 and over. Another somewhat disturbing result, of those polled that were under 30, just 23% said that having children was important to them. The one thing that everyone seemed to agree on, money is very important. When broken down between Republicans and Democrats, 45% of both said having enough money was important, with 36% of Independents saying having enough money was important.
Getting back to the state of faith and patriotism in America. What could have possibly happened in America to go from 7 in 10 Americans saying that patriotism is important, to the roughly 4 in 10 who now say it is important. The same question needs to be asked about the faith of Americans. What happened? Well, we might start with the “blame America first” crowd. That phrase was first introduced by Ronald Reagan’s Ambassador to the U.N Jean Kirkpatrick. At the time, she was describing her fellow Democrats. That was at the 1984 GOP convention. Since then, liberals have blamed just about every ill in the world on America. It has seeped into the education system. American children are being taught that America is bad, that it is not a force for good around the world. Those school children become college students who are further indoctrinated to hate America by tenured professors who pass on their own hatred of America. If America is raising generations of children to hate America, how can we expect them to be patriotic? The U.S. Army missed its recruiting goal by 25% in 2022 and is expected to do so in 2023. If generations of Americans are not being taught the importance of patriotism, we cannot expect them to have any desire to defend the nation.
America and belief in God are forever intertwined. As Americans, we know that our rights do not come from government, they come from our Creator. We believe that we are a blessed people, that we live in the greatest nation God ever gave man. But American church attendance has been on the decline for some time. Are we just too busy? Don’t want to give up an extra morning of sleeping in? Has our faith decreased because of events like the pandemic and other world disasters that have left us questioning? It used to be that those things would draw people closer to their faith. Are there other crutches that have taken the place of faith? More and more, we are a people, who only thrive when we get a certain number of views or likes. Young people are not being taught that only in America, can those completely unimportant things be made important to them. They are not being taught just how radically different their lives would be had they been born anywhere else.
What will the importance of patriotism and faith among Americans will look like the next time this poll is taken in 2048? Maybe it is something we should be thinking about in 2023.
