Wanna be happy? Be a conservative
A popular narrative is that young people are liberal and getting more liberal. What if that was fake news? And what is the effect of this so-called liberalism.
According to a report in The Hill two years ago, twelfth-grade boys (which is year 13 here so it’s 17-18 year olds (for us oldies – think 7th formers) – those boys are nearly twice as likely to identify as conservative versus liberal, according to a respected federal survey of American youth.
In annual surveys over the last three years, roughly one-quarter (between 26 and 23%) of high school seniors self-identified as conservative or “very conservative” on the Monitoring the Future survey, a scholarly endeavor that dates to the 1970s. Only 13 percent of boys identified as liberal or very liberal in those (last 3) years.
The figures represent a striking shift in the political views of boys. As recently as the late 2000s, liberal boys occasionally outnumbered conservatives.
You can see that just in the middle of the graph where the blue is above the red briefly, and also briefly in 2009.
Here’s what a psychotherapist told FOX news
It seems that high school boys do not want to be considered liberal. Liberal-identifying boys have been an ever-falling trend, however, since the study's first numbers in 1975 were at 25%.
However, girls are different
The share of 12th-grade girls who identified as liberal rose from 19 percent in 2012 to 30 percent in 2022. Only 12 percent of girls identified as conservative in last year’s survey, administered by the University of Michigan.
Young girls are a different story, though; liberalism in senior girls has skyrocketed to over 30% in recent years, whereas conservative-identifying girls have dropped to nearly a third in comparison at 12%.
It’s important to note that more than 40% responded to the liberal-conservative question on the survey saying, “None of the above” or “I don’t know.” Either they haven’t really thought about it, don’t care, or genuinely like a parts of both conservatism and liberalism. I’d suspect they just don’t want to label themselves.
Since 2016, however, the trend toward conservatism for high school boys has grown considerably. High school girls, on the other hand, have drastically moved to the Left in the past decade.
Young women, too, are trending liberal. Women ages 18 to 29 are more likely to identify as liberal now than at any time in the past two decades, according to Gallup surveys last year. Young women are almost twice as likely as young men to claim the liberal tag, a widening gender gap in political beliefs.
The political leanings of young men have changed little over the past two decades. Last year, 31 percent said they were conservative, 24 percent as liberal, and 43 percent identified as moderate – so they’re neither liberal or conservative.
DailyWire says
As boys in high school shift to the Right, fewer young men are graduating from America’s universities, which many conservatives believe have become beacons of leftist ideology. In the 2018-2019 academic year, just 74 men received a bachelor’s degree for every 100 women who completed their program. As of 2023, 64% of women at public universities were graduating compared to 58% of men. In overall enrollment, women are outnumbering men by almost 60% to 40%
However, before you despair about what is happening to our younger women, check out this story from June 2023. And remember this is all ages.
The Gallup survey released Thursday showed 38 percent of respondents said they are conservative or very conservative on social issues, an increase from the 33 percent who said so last year. The percentage who now say they are liberal or very liberal on these issues dropped from 33 percent last year to 29 percent.
So social conservatives have increased from 30% to 38% in the past 2 years.
Social liberals have dropped from 34% to just 29% in the past 2 years
But here’s the interesting bit – and I shared this as part of my opening remarks at the recent Forum on the Family,
PEW Research found that young liberal women followed by young liberal men (on the right of the graph) were far more likely to have been diagnosed with a mental health issue than a young conservative female or male (shown on the left) and 18-29 and 30-49 are the left half of each line
Now commentators such as the Disinformation Project and other activists will immediately blame phobias, bigotry and right wing fundamentalism.
But the research amongst young people from the same Monitoring the Future study of students shows clearly that the harms started rising with a social liberal as President (Obama), gay marriage being legalised and the White House being lit up in the new cultural religion. So that argument simply doesn’t stack up.
Here’s the more recent data from that same study through to 2021 – and this was reported in 2023. Self derogation is inner conflict and anxiety & depression. Most likely in liberal girls followed by liberal boys. Least like in those who identify as social conservatives.
As I shared at the Forum, progressivism or liberalism is secular. No God. No moral standard. Narcissism and hedonism. Just watch any secular music video to see that. With no God, it’s about a need for recognition and admiration, pleasure esp sexual is the highest good. Sound familiar.
Therefore, with no God and biblical Truth, progressivism is depressing. Because it’s so confusing. 112 genders and 200+ sexualities? Yeah right.
Now this earlier research has recently been backed up.
According to Evie Magazine this month
According to the 2024 American Family Survey, young liberal women are significantly less likely to report life satisfaction compared to their conservative peers. The numbers don’t lie.
Findings reveal that 37% of conservative women and 28% of moderate women aged 18–40 reported being "completely satisfied" with their lives. However, for liberal women, that number shrinks to a measly 12%. Liberal women are almost three times more likely than conservative women to experience loneliness multiple times a week, about 29% compared to 11%.
Brad Wilcox, a sociology professor at the University of Virginia and a fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, told Fox Digital, "We've seen in the research that conservative women tend to be more likely to embrace a sense of agency and to have the sense that they are not, in any way, the victim of larger structural realities or forces." He added, "They're also less likely to catastrophize about public events and concerns," and "more likely to think of themselves as captains of their own fate."
40% of liberal women reported being single, while 31% were married, Wilcox found. Among conservative women, 33% reported being single, while a more sizable 51% were married. Conservative women again took the lead for religious attendance, with over half reporting attending church weekly, compared to just 12% of liberal women.
The Institute for Family Studies concludes that these two factors, marriage and church attendance, account for about half of the happiness gap between liberal and conservative women. "Liberal young women are less likely to be integrated into core American institutions—marriage and religion—that lend meaning, direction, and a sense of solidarity to women’s lives," their report stated.
If you want to improve your mental health, get married, go to church, become a social conservative.
Pretty simple.
But even New Zealand commentators and academics are observing this trend.
Just this morning, this very disturbing article !!
Rise of ‘tradwife’ movement reflects youth shift to conservative values
It’s worth reading a bit of it
A few years ago, commentators and analysts often raised the idea of a ‘youthquake’ — young, first-time, left-leaning voters coming in and shaking up the political landscape.
In 2019, the number of elected officials under 30 doubled in city and district council elections in New Zealand, according to the Guardian.
It was after events such as the School Strikes 4 Climate and the rise of politicians including Jacinda Ardern and the US’ Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
But recently, there has been a shift to more conservative views among our youngest voters, a yearning for the “good old days” has seen trends such as “tradwives” and a “return to traditional family values” skyrocket online.
According to a Harvard Youth Poll, the US’ youngest voters — those aged 18 to 24 — say they’re more conservative than the cohort that’s just a bit older.
The younger generation of men is more likely to identify as conservative than liberal — a new trend.
Not just in the US but also in the UK.
Auckland University of Technology senior lecturer in communication studies, Christina Vogels told The Front Page she’s not surprised, but alarmed.
“I’ve done some work on young women and this growing trend towards the conservative and the far right and it matches with what’s happening with young men.
“If we look at young men in the rise of Jordan Peterson and these social media influencers promoting this return to some kind of ‘real masculinity’, this is not a new thing. This happens in waves across history.
“We last had a men’s liberation movement in the 1980s, where it was really popular, this idea of returning to a conservative masculinity identity. What we are seeing at the moment is it being complemented by a rise in young women taking on conservative gender roles. We see this, particularly through the ‘tradwife’ movement, which dovetails with the far-right women’s movement,” she said.
The ‘tradwife’ movement has gained increasing popularity since 2020 and depicts a woman who believes in and practices traditional gender roles and marriages….
Vogels is hopeful history will repeat itself and “we will come out of this”.
“The only thing that is a concern is what’s happening with the far-right movement. Because what we’re seeing in America is a new state of political play. This post-democratic America is something that we haven’t seen before in the Western world in this space.”
Somebody call the Disinformation project. Help. Oh wait. They’ve been shut down – for peddling disinformation.
But talking about this – you know, I’ve just got to play this clip from a documentary about disinformation – and featuring the Disinformation Project telling us all that the real risk to the fabric of society is – tradwives.
To the women watching, please note – according to the experts, if you’re a trad wife (i looked that up – its “a woman who prefers to take a traditional role in marriage, including the beliefs that a woman does not lose anything by "choosing" to stay at home and by doing so can support their family needs better”), if you’re a trad wife, white, christian, into cooking with your children, on Instagram or Pinterest, interior design, knitting, children’s clothing, healthy food for children – then you’re being drawn into white nationalist ideas. You are the problem. Have a watch.
That is a classic.
The tradwife movement is making a comeback, because conservative values, getting married, going to church – surprise surprise – makes you happy!
Just one more thing before I go. To all the women watching – adult human female – you’ll appreciate this research.
Conservative women are perceived as both prettier and happier than left-wing women, at least according to artificial intelligence (AI). An AI model gave conservative women high “attractiveness” scores, according to a March study published in the journal Scientific Reports, which is owned by Nature.
“For females (though not males), high attractiveness scores were found among those the model identified as likely to be conservative,” the study said.
The researchers added that these results are “credible” since previous research using human raters rather than AI has also highlighted a link between attractiveness and conservatism. The researchers also observed that an expression of “contempt” was related to “a predicted probability of left-wing ideology.”
“We also found that expressing happiness is associated with conservatism for both genders,” the researchers wrote.
If you want proof that this study is correct, well, I’m happy. But definitely not pretty.
A 2022 survey found that conservative women are much more likely to be “completely satisfied” with their lives than liberal women. About 31% of conservative women ages 18 to 55 are “completely satisfied” with their lives while only 16% of liberal women are, according to the American Family Survey from YouGov and Deseret News. The survey also found that conservative women are 24% more likely to be happy with their family life.
That’s really gonna blow the mind of the Disinformation Unit, isn’t it.
Bottom line, team – if you want to be healthier, happier and have better mental health, become a social conservative.