Progressivism’s Cultural Cul-de-Sac

T here was a time in living memory when individual voting patterns were distinct from the more important things in life. How you worshipped, where you lived, the industry in which you worked, and the cultural products you consumed said a lot more about you than the politicians for whom you voted. No longer. Social scientists long ago observed that individual political identities were merging with or even supplanting preexisting social identities. Politics and culture were converging upon each other.

Today, individual voting histories say as much or more about a person’s values as their associations and living arrangements. The cultures into which voters are sorting themselves are distinct in profound ways, but they are not evenly matched. The cultural affinities that are increasingly associated with the American Right may provide Republicans and their allies with more room for growth than those affiliated with the Left provide Democrats.

Survey data published by the Pew Research Center last week identify some of the “key cultural issues” that divide Donald Trump’s supporters and Joe Biden’s. Voters who believe “gun ownership” makes for safer individuals and communities, think the justice system is “generally not tough enough on criminals,” and prioritize marriage and having children gravitate more toward the Trump camp. By contrast, those who say gender is a fluid construct, “openness to people from all over the world” is “essential” to America’s self-conception, and the “legacy of slavery” represents an obstacle to the success of black Americans are more likely to back Biden. The problem for Democrats here is that far more people subscribe to the Right’s values than the Left’s.

Based on data Pew compiled last year, only about 32 percent of Americans say they own a firearm. That’s not a large percentage of the population, though it translates to about 82 million Americans. Nevertheless, among the majority of Americans who do not own a gun, 47 percent say they could conceive of themselves as gun owners in the future, whereas 52 percent are firmly set against ever purchasing a weapon. You don’t need a calculator to conclude that these data suggest a minority of Americans are outright hostile toward guns and firearm ownership. Indeed, Pew indicates that about 40 percent of self-described Democrats can envision themselves as firearms owners — a figure that is perhaps boosted by the 56 percent of African Americans who say the same.

Likewise, 61 percent of registered voters told Pew pollsters this year that the criminal-justice system does not prosecute criminals with sufficient vigor. Just one-quarter of respondents told pollsters the justice system had struck the right balance while a paltry 13 percent said America is too harsh in its treatment of criminals. When it comes to marriage and children, supermajorities claim to aspire to both. Late last year, Pew found that nearly seven in ten adults between the ages of 18 and 34 who have never been married say they hope to wed a partner in the future. Just 8 percent of the same cohort doesn’t hope to get married. As for having children, Gallup, which has been asking Americans what they see as the “ideal family size” since 1935, has found Americans warming in recent years to large families. In the late 1960s, having three or more children cratered in popularity, but it has rebounded this century to achieve near parity with those who say “one or two” kids is sufficient. Today, 45 percent say large families are ideal (up from a low of 28 percent in 1986) compared with 47 percent who say one or two children would be perfect (which crested in 1986 at 64 percent).

These cultural preferences do not map perfectly onto political proclivities, but Pew shows that there is significant overlap — and that’s not good news for Democrats.

Those Americans who say that gender “can be different from sex assigned at birth” are members of a declining minority. In 2017, a small majority of registered voters — 54 percent — told Pew’s pollsters they did not believe gender was a mutable construct. That majority has only grown in the years in which radical transgender activism became a cause célèbre on the Left. Today, according to Pew, 64 percent of Americans believe that gender is “determined by sex assigned at birth.”

Eighty-seven percent of Biden supporters agree with the idea that “openness” to immigrants “from all over the world is essential to who we are as a nation.” In the abstract, that is not an offensive proposition. This year, for example, Marist pollsters found that the statement “diversity makes the U.S. stronger” is not a controversial proposition for most Americans, including the vast majority of self-described Republicans. But the growing bipartisan backlash against Joe Biden’s lax enforcement of immigration law has eroded Americans’ support for legal and illegal immigration alike. Today, a majority of Americans back building a border wall and a program of mass deportations, while the number of U.S. adults who say even legal immigration should be “decreased” is as high as it’s been in a decade.

While 79 percent of Biden voters agree with the notion that the “legacy of slavery affects the position of black people in American society” either “a great deal” or a “fair amount,” Pew’s data suggest that is a minority outlook. In late 2021, the pollster found that just 40 percent of adults agreed with the idea that “the legacy of slavery affects the position of black people in American society today.” That was once a more controversial idea than it is today. Nevertheless, it is not growing in popularity. Today, 45 percent say “people seeing racial discrimination where it really does not exist” is a bigger societal problem than the opposite, up from 43 percent in 2020 and 42 percent in 2019. Concepts like “diversity, equity, and inclusion” and reparative wealth transfers are in increasing disfavor with most voters, and majorities believe remedial programs like affirmative action in higher education and the workplace would do little to advance racial comity in America.

In short, if the outlooks of each party’s voters were stocks, there would be no question about which looked like the sounder investment. Events can intervene and dominant political personalities can muddy the picture, but, in the abstract, the worldview to which Republican voters are more inclined is also the worldview on which a majority of Americans look favorably. Progressives have wedded themselves to a variety of cultural affinities that are either unpopular or have declining salience. Whatever happens in the 2024 elections in November, that’s a trend that should convince Democrats of the need to broaden their appeal. From our present vantage, the path on which the Left has embarked looks like a dead end.