More in Common

Which is good news!

When I find myself thinking about something again and again, like someone putting weight on a sprained ankle to see how the healing is coming along, it can go one of two ways. I either decide it is meaningless and put it aside, or I take a deep dive and try to understand what I am seeing. This is true weather it is a new butterfly I’ve met on the trail, a strange noise being made by my 2004 Sprinter, or some brand of nonsense I heard emanate from someone’s mouth. As I mentioned in a previous post, a young niece (19 years old) recently said in conversation that she hates the US and would like to move to another country. I’ve looked into this a bit.

The non-partisan organization More In Common conducted a series of surveys and polls and published their findings in December of last year in “American Fabric: identity and Belonging”. Their findings run counter to the common perception of Americans at each other’s throat and confirm what I have long suspected. Reality does not comport with the narratives being sold by the media. Read the whole thing, it is well worth the time. From the forward:

“A central element in America’s story is that the United States is bound together not
by the shared ancestry of its people, but by a shared allegiance to a set of values and
beliefs. To citizens who share this allegiance, America has promised equality under
the law. Even when this promise has been dishonored, the pursuit of justice has very
often reinforced, rather than rejected, this shared creed. [snip] This sense of shared values and beliefs is so central to American identity that historians have described America as a “creedal nation”. As More in Common’s research found in 2018, Americans are united in believing that commitment to
freedom and equality is important for being American, with more than nine in ten
recognizing the relevance of those values.”

This is a big deal. The American Experiment and all that entails—individual rights and freedom, the rule of law, equality under the law, in short the values laid out in our founding documents—is alive and thriving. There is common ground between all factions and all identity groups.

First, lets take a look at these factions, what are described as the “Hidden Tribes”. The polling indicates that the general public breaks down into roughly seven “tribes”: Progressive Activists (8%), Traditional Liberals (11%), Passive Liberals (15%), Politically Disengaged (26%), Moderates (15%), Traditional Conservatives (19%), and Devoted Conservatives (6%).

Interestingly, it is the outliers that tend to make most of the noise—the 8% that are Progressive Activists and the 6% that identify as Devoted Conservatives—though when taken together are just 14% of the population. Throughout the study the differences in opinion and perception among these groups are obvious, but when it comes to pride in the country the vast majority seem to agree.

What to make of this?

It seems the only group who is not very proud to be Americans are “progressive activists.” Gen Z comes in at 51% (which I attribute to our genuinely awful, politicized educational system), but all other groups are overwhelmingly proud of the nation.

I suspect that though 66% of Progressive Activists claim to have no pride in the country, few would actually leave if given the chance. We’ve seen this happen again and again. Very few actually want to live in a worker’s paradise.

What I think we are seeing (and this is just my opinion) is a tiny minority of angry and dysfunctional people using social media, the legal system, and public education to create an impression that is nothing like reality; and because this is how we hear the times described, we assume there must be some truth to it. There isn’t.

Those who foster this false narrative, and have hitched their wagons to revolution, are in for an unhappy surprise. The pendulum swings. Truth wins out in the end. The “exhausted majority” is real, and they will not respond well to being misled.

These are hardly the worst times. In fact, these are the best of times. Be of good cheer. Don’t worry and practice saying, “Yeah, you’re not the boss of me.”