Are Americans Becoming More Conservative?

As the Biden administration wages war on traditional American values, there has been a growing sense within the conservative movement that this effort is backfiring and causing people to become more ideologically conservative. But what does the evidence say?

On average last year according to Gallup, 37 percent of Americans described their political views as moderate, 36 percent as conservative, and 25 percent as liberal. These numbers have remained relatively unchanged over the last decade, suggesting that neither Biden nor Trump’s presidency for that matter have much impacted the national political identity of the country.

But an issue-by-issue examination of this question produces some noteworthy results that suggest the country may indeed be becoming more conservative in certain key areas.

On social issues, for instance, conservatives appear to be gaining ground – even as the Biden administration pursues the most far-left social agenda in American history. Another Gallup poll from June of this year found that 38 percent of Americans say they are “conservative” or “very conservative” on social issues, compared to 33 percent who said the same in 2022 and 30 percent who said the same in 2021.

Meanwhile, the portion of Americans saying their social views are “liberal” or “very liberal” dipped to 29 percent this year from 34 percent last year, while the number of Americans identifying as moderate remained relatively unchanged at 31 percent.

To be sure, there are still some concerning social trends for conservatives. Just one quarter of Americans now say they value Biblical morality, while just one third of Evangelicals, even fewer mainline Protestants, and one quarter of Catholics say they believe in absolute moral truths, and that defining truth is not up to each individual. Clearly, the left’s moral relativism has taken hold in the culture.

This development runs counter to what George Washington emphasized in his farewell address, namely that political prosperity depended on religious morality forming “the dispositions and habits” of American citizens. Similarly, French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville held that Christianity should be considered “a first of American institutions that must be maintained at all costs.”

Nonetheless, even as the percentage of Americans who identified as Christian fell from 72 percent in 2020 to 63 percent this year, half of Americans who do not identify with any religion still say they cherish traditional moral values, according to a survey from the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University. That same poll found that 71 percent of Americans overall say they support traditional moral values, regardless of religious belief.

Although these figures are undoubtedly far from what they were 40 or 50 years ago, they also hardly reflect the epic collapse of Judeo-Christian values so often broadcast by the mainstream media today.

On certain LGBTQ+ issues, the Biden administration’s radicalism (and a concerted messaging effort by conservatives) also seems to be pushing Americans in a more conservative direction. For instance, even as the Biden administration violated the U.S. Flag Code by flying a “pride progress” flag from the Truman Balcony during a White House event and relentless push far-left talking points on transgenderism, 71 percent of likely voters agree with the statement, “There are only two genders, male and female.”

In a particularly telling sign of how much the Biden administration’s radicalism on gender issues has shifted public opinion toward the conservative position, 69 percent of Americans now say that people should only be allowed to compete on sports teams that correspond with the sex they were assigned at birth. In 2021, that number was 62 percent, indicating that all of Biden’s messaging and policies on the issue have had the opposite of their intended effect.

55 percent of Americans now also say that a person attempting to change their gender is “morally wrong,” a 4 percent increase from two years ago.

On other issues as well, the efforts on the part of the Biden administration and the left more broadly to sway public opinion have clearly failed.

As has been evidenced by the public backlash to perceived “woke” initiatives by companies like Bud Light and Target, Americans are rejecting woke corporatism like never before. According to a June survey from Issues and Insights, a plurality of Americans (46 percent) oppose corporate social activism, while just 17 percent support it and 29 percent express indifference.

Support for far-left groups like the Black Lives Matter organization also dropped to 51 percent this year from a high of 67 percent in 2020. A majority of Americans now say that the liberal obsession with race hasn’t improved the lives of Black Americans.

Meanwhile, the thing that Americans value the most highly – family – has remained unchanged even with all the other social upheaval. 80 percent of Americans still say that “family” is one of their core values, while 61 percent declare they would fight for their family.

70 percent of Americans also say “personal independence” and “justice” are among their core values. The same percentage also identified “happiness” as critically important to them.

Crucially, more than two thirds of Americans identify “character,” “integrity,” “kindness,” “property ownership,” “trustworthiness,” and “individual growth” as part of the “American ethos.” While the left would like to suggest that these virtues are “old fashioned,” and therefore squarely in the realm of conservatism, most Americans still believe that these concepts are an important part of their identity.

Perhaps more importantly, Americans seem to understand that their values are not being reflected in the culture or the country writ large. 54 percent of Americans rated the state of morals in the U.S. as “poor” this year, the first time that number has topped 50 percent since Gallup began tracking it in 2002.

So why is it that Biden and his Democrat allies have failed so spectacularly to sway the country toward their positions, and in fact seem to have caused Americans to become more conservative in some cases?

One possible answer might come from a 2010 book entitled The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America and What We Can Do About It by the late Angelo Codevilla, who was then professor at Boston University.

In his work, Codevilla argues that less than 15 percent of Americans actually support the ideas and goals of the elites – a group he refers to as “the ruling class.”

The ruling class “sets itself apart from the rest of us by its connection with the ever-bigger government,” Codevilla writes. “They think, look, and act as a class.”

Meanwhile, the vast majority of Americans have diametrically opposed views to the ruling class. Codevilla terms them “the country class.” They are the men and women who revere the American flag, adhere to traditional moral values, and sing “God Bless America” at sporting events.

Another defining feature of the country class was their belief in God, who they believe made them in His image. Meanwhile, the ruling class “prayed to themselves as saviors of the planet.”

Codevilla was writing during the Obama era, with the president and his allies representing the interests of the ruling class. In 2008, presidential hopeful Barack Obama infamously characterized conservatives in an openly disdainful manner as those who “cling to guns or religion or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” For him, the concerns of the country class were not even worth consideration.

But six years later, Codevilla’s country class would rise up and reject the values of the ruling class by electing Donald Trump president.

Now, the Biden administration once again represents the interests of the ruling class, with the country class again relegated to the status of second-class citizens. If anyone had any doubts of this, look no further than Vice President Kamala Harris’s remark earlier this month that the U.S. must “reduce population” in order to fight climate change.

Although the White House later attempted to explain away the comment, Harris’s meaning was clear – the lives of ordinary Americans are far less important than the left’s ideological climate agenda. This general contempt for the country class has been evinced time and again by Obama, Biden, Harris, and their elitist allies.

Now, public polling and a general feeling within American culture suggests that the country class may be rising up once again, bringing with it a new rebirth of conservatism in the United States.

Ben Solis is the pen name of an international affairs journalist, historian, and researcher.