Social Values and the Role of Government
A report from the Pew Research Center on U.S. political values stated, “As Americans head to the polls this November, their values and basic beliefs are more polarized along partisan lines than at any point in the past 25 years.” The report describes the widening gap between Republicans and Democrats in measures of 48 political values. While the conclusions may be all too familiar, the report covers the 25-year period from 1987 to 2012.
The 48 values were surveyed by asking respondents whether they agreed with statements on a wide variety of issues, including environment, social safety net, immigration, LGBTQ rights, government scope, and religiosity. For example, for the question. should Government take care of people who can’t take care of themselves, 75 % of Democrats said yes in 2012, but only 40 % of Republicans. The gap for this statement was thus 35 %. In 1987 79 % of Democrats and 62 % of Republicans agreed; the gap was 17 %.
In 1987 the average gap in responses between the two parties was 10 %; in 2012 the gap had increased to 18 %. The report found, “Nearly all of the increases have occurred during the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama.” While the gap between political parties nearly doubled, the gap between races, genders, age, income, college graduation, and church attendance changed by only one or two percent.
On issues such as social safety net, environment, immigration, and equal opportunity, Democrats were far more in favor of government support than Republicans, and the gap between them expanded significantly between 1987 and 2012. The growing gap between political party positions coincided with movement in both parties toward their respective left and right extremes.
In 2020 Pew Research Center surveyed U.S. citizens’ views on what the government’s role should be and how well the government was performing in those roles. Republicans favoring limited government coincided with Republican contentment with status quo on various policy areas. For example, when asked whether the federal government was doing a good job helping people out of poverty, 59% of Republicans said yes compared to 18% of Democrats. On the companion question of whether government should play a major role in helping people out of poverty, 74% of Democrats said yes compared to 50% of Republicans.
Similar gaps occurred for companion questions when asked about protecting the environment, maintaining infrastructure, effectively handling threats to public health, and ensuring access to health care: in each instance, Republicans were more satisfied than Democrats with the government’s job, and less in favor of a major government role.
From 1987 to 2020 the consistent trend has been toward a widening gap between the major political parties over the role of the federal government and the difference in social values conveyed by each party’s position. Those differences currently play out in debate over legislative proposals from the Biden administration.