Polls show Americans are embracing social conservatism in numbers not seen since 2012

Jul 25, 2023 by Jill

by Jonathon Van Maren, LifeSite:

Support for social conservatism has risen 8 points in the last two years as Americans increasingly reject far-left radicalism.

While there have been plenty of positive developments in the culture wars — especially a wave of legislation across the United States banning “sex changes” for children and restricting abortion — I’m always wary of claims that we are “winning” in any way. The culture itself has certainly been lost, and when I read a recent list of “wins” — against the transgender industry, Drag Queen Story Hour, etc. — I couldn’t help but notice that every single one of these victories were regarding issues that weren’t even on our radar a decade ago.

The victories that the social conservative movement achieves are actually an indication of just how bad things have gotten and how far the goalposts have been moved as a result.

That said, there have been some interesting trend lines lately — trend lines that have gotten LGBT activists groups very, very worried. For example, Gallup recently released a set of polls indicating that in 2023, 38% of Americans reported that they are “very conservative” or “conservative” on social issues specifically, which is up from 33% in 2022 and 30% in 2021, an eight-point jump in only two years. This corresponds to a decline in those identifying as either “very liberal” or “liberal” on social issues, which has dipped to 29% from 34% in each of the past two years, with 31% identifying as moderate.

What is interesting, Gallup’s report noted, is that “the last time this many Americans said they were socially conservative was 2012, during a period when consistently more U.S. adults identified as conservative rather than liberal on social issues.” Gallup noted that the “survey comes at a time when many states are considering policies regarding transgender matters, abortion, crime, drug use and the teaching of gender and sexuality in schools.” This is unlikely to be a coincidence — as progressive activists show their hand, their sheer radicalism on many of these issues puts them at odds with most ordinary Americans.

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