But not if the beatings continue
One may find polls to support about any position out there. A set of polls that consistently tilt one way are those reporting that conservatives are happier than liberals. These findings date back years.
Contra that, Rachel Bitecofer cites data from the World Happiness Report—a partnership between Gallup, the Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre and the United Nations—that suggests people who live in red states are, by and large, less happy than those who live in bluer states. European countries, you have heard, report greater hapoiness than the U.S., however. This too is a consistent result. Indeed, “the U.S. fell eight spots to number 23 in the global rankings between 2023 and 2024,” dropping out of the top 20 for the first time in the survey’s history.
But not so fast. Polling of individiuals still more consistently shows that conservatives report being happier than liberals.
Real Clear Science from August 2022:
Social psychologist Jaime Napier, Program Head of Psychology at NYU-Abu Dhabi has conducted research suggesting that views about inequality play a role.
“One of the biggest correlates with happiness in our surveys was the belief of a meritocracy, which is the belief that anybody who works hard can make it,” she told PBS. “That was the biggest predictor of happiness. That was also one of the biggest predictors of political ideology. So, the conservatives were much higher on these meritocratic beliefs than liberals were.”
To paraphrase, conservatives are less concerned with equality of outcomes and more with equality of opportunity. While American liberals are depressed by inequalities in society, conservatives are okay with them provided that everyone has roughly the same opportunities to succeed. The latter is a more rosy and empowering view than the deterministic former.
Two other studies explored a more surprising contributor: neuroticism, typically defined as “a tendency toward anxiety, depression, self-doubt, and other negative feelings.” Surveyed conservatives consistently score lower in neuroticism than surveyed liberals.
There are other studies that show the same thing.
All that is prelude to an observation made last week by David Frum that reduces liberal less-happiness to a single line, one that reflects why efforts at selling a progressive policy agenda fail to persuade voters.
Considering the sideshow put on in Milwaukee last week by the Republican National Committee, Frum assured readers of The Atlantic, “This crew is as beatable as any reactionary minority faction ever was beatable.”
Frum notes, however, that when Bill Clinton gave his SOTU address in 1996, he led with his economic accomplishments “within the very first minute of his speech.” Nearly 30 years later, Joe Biden buried his lede 15 minutes deep into his 2024 SOTU.
Frum believes it reflects the left’s less-happiness (emphasis mine):
This Clinton-Biden disparity reveals something bigger than a difference in presidential style. The Democratic Party has profoundly changed since the 1990s. Today, tremendous power within the party has been amassed by groups and factions that speak for grievances. Good news is contrary to their principles and their purpose. Nobody can be happy if anybody is unhappy. They seem to believe that the way to reelect an administration is to detail all the things still wrong after four years of holding office. Here’s the advice Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut was offering Biden on the eve of his disastrous first debate with Donald Trump: “You should spend 80 percent of the time telling the story of how the drug companies screwed people, and 20 percent of the time explaining the solution. We do the opposite.”
Last year, The Washington Post’s Paul Waldman remarked upon the Biden administration’s “fear of being seen as out of touch—or their fear of being scolded by participants in an elite debate that is invisible to most of the electorate.” That latter observation was exactly correct. Above all else, the Biden administration feared scolding by progressive interest groups. Those groups gain clout within the Democratic universe by accusing and disparaging. They imagine that the same techniques might work for an incumbent Democratic president with a record to defend, seeking to persuade swing voters. They don’t, and they won’t.
Not being a buzzkill sells better, Barack Obama observed. I’ve referred to “glass-half-empty progressives” whose first reflex is to complain about what the “establishment,” the neoliberals, the centrists, etc., did not deliver, that nothing is better than half a loaf. (Nobody can be happy if anybody is unhappy.) We all know them. Some of us are them. We tend do be liberal with sticks and conservative with carrots where it comes to our political allies. This is not the time.
Frum offers a big “Biden must go” caveat:
Democrats seem to be convinced by the hope that the way to inflict the beating is to change leadership. But the biggest defect of the present Democratic leadership was imposed by the Democratic followership: the reluctance to accept the fact that four years of non-Trump leadership have accomplished an enormous amount that is worth defending.
With a predator’s cunning, Trump has always understood that the first step to winning the confidence of others is to project confidence in oneself. Trump has used that understanding for his own crooked and criminal purposes. But the same understanding can be put to good use by better people.
Believe! Or lose.
Lead with the good stuff. Please. Declare victory and don’t stop.
● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
For The Win, 5th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us.