If it were a matter of polling, “the land of the free” might rather be named “the land of the family.”
Recent Gallup surveys show as much, with family as the top value overall and for almost every subgroup — the postgraduate-educated hold integrity just above it. When asked to choose their three most important values, 49% of people placed family in the list, a statistic 19 percentage points higher than for freedom, the runner-up.
The distance is greater between key subgroups. Partisan differences are the most significant, as is often the case: Republicans ranked family in their most important values at a rate of 66%, while Democrats and independents did so at 40% and 44%, respectively.
That 26-point gap outdoes the 21 points between frequent and seldom religious service attendees and the almost equal split between people with high school diplomas and postgraduate degrees. It makes the 14 points between married and unmarried people, and between those aged 18-29 and 65 or older, look negligible.
Within the Democratic subgroup, members cannot coalesce around a given “most important” value. Family is still the highest, with a mere 40% agreeing to place it in their top three. The next is health, at 29% of Democrats, while faith and friendship are lowest, at 11%. For Republicans, family hits home for the 66% already discussed, and faith comes in second, at 48%.
It would be fitting for faith to surmount family, at least on the part of Republicans, but that’s the modern age. And in any case, the statistics help oppose the notion that family is a drag on contentment and happiness. In polling elsewhere, conservatives report greater happiness than liberals in every demographic offered, anywhere from 8 points greater to 24.
In fact, when family falls in importance, so does every other value suffer. The top three values for Republicans — family, faith, and freedom — rank at least 10 points higher than the second set of three values, which declines by the same rate to the following third. For Democrats, the top value of family surpasses its competitors, but the next six values of most importance hardly vary in popularity. Lowering the value of family, it seems, makes the group apathetic about most other things.
That effect is partly a product of Democrats’ social liberal preferences, with children and marriage as necessary opponents to those goals. Increasingly antisocial, childless, and secular conduct results. And especially as abortion remains the central agenda item, those lifestyles remain compulsory, and Democrats, predictably, unhappier.
Paradoxical to the Democratic view, family and freedom appear synergistic. Patriotism- and freedom-loving Republicans show a greater value for and reliance on the family structure. Independence, they prove, does not require the individualism which Democrats presume.
In demonstrated policy priorities, such as how to structure and fund child care, that valuation split holds true. Now, seeing through the strategy and rhetoric, we know why.