Why are Republicans generally more patriotic than Democrats?

Great Debates
121

How can you say this, yet just whoosh over the part where Republicans who identify as “extremely patriotic” increased by 50% from 2005 to 2010?

Did Republicans suddenly actually become more patriotic? Was there a big change in public attitudes? Or did they just start answering a survey question slightly differently?

Self-identified patriotism is a horrible metric for patriotism.

Let’s put in in terms you can understand. Suppose there was a survey that asked: “How honest are you? Extremely honest, very honest, moderately honest, slightly honest, not honest?”

If more Democrats answered “Extremely honest” would you take that as very good evidence that Democrats were more honest than Republicans?

No, of course you wouldn’t, and neither would I. That’s because the survey does several things. It leaves the definition of honesty up to the answerer, it leaves the definition of extreme/very/moderately/slightly/not up to the answerer, it lets them judge themselves according to their own standard, and it lets them lie about their answer.

I mean, how do you judge the honesty of a person who answers that they’re not at all honest? If they’re not honest then they’re telling the truth, but that makes them honest, and the robot’s head asplodes.

It’s easy to SAY you’re patriotic, even when you’re not. It’s easy to make up your own definition of patriotism. It’s easy to be mistaken about yourself. It’s easy to answer survey questions in a way that flatters yourself.

Answering a survey question about how patriotic you are is not a good metric for how patriotic you actually are.

And your complaint that if I don’t like it I’m therefore obligated to come up with a better metric is ludicrous. How much do you love your kids? How religious are you? How honest are you? Are you a good driver? How smart are you? How caring are you? These are all subjective judgements that HAVE NO OBJECTIVE METRICS. If we want to find out if Republicans or Democrats are better drivers, would it be a good idea to send out a survey and ask people if they’re a good driver? That would gather objective data, but it would not gather objective data about who is or is not a good driver, it just gathers data about how likely it is that people will answer the questions one way or another.

What have we learned from this survey? We learned that Republicans are more likely to claim to be patriotic than Democrats. Big whoop. I could have told you that. “The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.”

There does not exist an objective metric for patriotism that you and I can agree on.

122

Could I trouble you for just one more reasoned response? Which post of mine in the 4th of July thread do you feel most clearly expressed the sentiment “Oh, you are all a bunch of overthinking navel gazers but you still hate America.”? Even a minimal response, with something like just a post number would suffice.

123

So do we at least agree that the Gallup question wasn’t “loaded” then?

124

I ask you to contemplate the Consumer Confidence Index for a moment. It asks utterly subjective questions. Do you think there’s any value in it? Or should it be discarded because people might lie or have their own definitions for some of the terms used? I submit that it’s actually a pretty useful metric, even though it’s built entirely on people’s subjective answers to ill-defined questions.

125

The consumer confidence survey does not have respondents evaluating themselves.

That, I think is the distinction between the two.

How much would you value credit from a class in which the students assigned themselves grades? Would you think that’s a good metric for anything other than how students claim they did in the class? What does that tell you about all students?

126

This poll would be useful for tracking something related to how patriotic various Americans see themselves – perhaps the flag industry would want to use that for forecasts in various cities and times of year. But I don’t see how it’s useful for tracking or measuring an entirely subjective concept like patriotism.

127

I don’t know the people’s at gallop, but I do assume that they are, for the most part, objective and non-partisan, and so therefore would not have intentionally created a poisoned poll by adding a loaded question.

That does not mean that the question is not loaded, in a way. The word “patriot” is a loaded word, with many meanings, many powerful, and many contradictory to another’s definition. It is an interesting question, and I do not know that it is meaningless data, but it does seem as though some would roll with it to indicate that one party is “better americans” than the other, which is something that I do not feel that it indicates.

128

I gave a response in the other thread that I think fits here too.

We accept all sorts of subjective evaluations by poll respondents on a very diverse set of topics. Everything from the state of the economy, to the job the president is doing, to the severity of the drug problem in their own neighborhood or the severity of the crime problem across the country. It strikes me as rather … backwards to accept someone’s evaluation of their neighborhood, the president, the country, or the economy, but not their evaluation of themselves, at least as one informative data point.

In cases where objective measurements exist aside from this self evaluation (someone earlier mentioned weight, and in your own student example, there would be objective results from actual tests), then those certainly provide additional informative data points.

129

The consumer confidence index is important becuase the economy is based on opinion. If too many people are of the opinion that the economy is in the toilet, the economy will be in the toilett. People spend depending on how they feel about their current and future finances, and the more confident they feel about that, the more they spend. You can draw direct correlations between the CCI and actual spending in the econonmy.

The CCI also asks more and better defined questions.

and they are asked +,- or neutral on those factors, rather than +++,++,+, or -, as in the “patriotism” question.

This is actually useful data that is collected regularly because it really does allow economists to more reliably forecast trends.

What does the patriotism poll forecast, except, as iiandyiiii points out, upcoming flag sales?

130

Most of those are things that can be objectively measured to some degree. Patriotism is a hopelessly nebulous and subjective concept, and I don’t see how it can be measured in any objective way (I’ve suggested several subjective ways).

131

It’s not a terrible metric if you just want to subjectively measure Americ[COLOR=“Silver”]a[/COLOR][sup]TM[/sup] brand loyalty. But really it’s about as useful as using “Have you seen Hamilton” as a measure of patriotism.

132

Agreed.

Ill-defined and ill-conceived, but not “loaded”.

133

I haven’t claimed it “forecasts” anything at all. I was trying to dispense with the objection that the poll wasn’t useful because of its subjective, as opposed to objective, nature. We collectively find value in lots of subjective evaluations. Everything from the presidential job approval to ‘happiness’.

134

Exactly. Inversely proportional, right? :smiley:

135

What? You haven’t seen Hamilton?! Why do you hate America!?

136

I have long been bothered by how the Republicans seem to have claimed “patriotism” as being a conservative trait.

I am very liberal. I fly the flag on certain holidays. I have a few t-shirts that depict flags that I wear on those holidays and other times. And every time I put out the flag or put on one of those shirts, I wonder if people are seeing me as something I’m not. (It just occurred to me that I should get a flag lapel pit to wear on my Nasty Woman shirt, just to confuse folks.)

I say the Pledge of Allegiance when I’m in a situation where people do so. But I don’t say “under God” as part of it. That’s not because I’m a traditionalist, but because I really believe in the separation of church and state. Does that make me more patriotic than the man standing behind me who made a point of shouting those two words?

I think my conception that patriotism is seen as a GOP trait goes back to my teen years, when conservatives went around telling those of us who protested the Viet Nam war or stood up for Civil Rights that we were being traitors. They wore buttons and had bumper stickers that proclaimed, “America – Love it or Leave It.” If you somehow dared to think that there were things that were wrong with our country, you were a damn commie. I wonder what those people would think about “Make America Great Again” – because what is that slogan but an admission that America isn’t great?

Sometimes I get the giggles when I see Trump in his red MAGA cap. Because another slogan those conservatives used back then was “Better Dead than Red.” Red back then meant Communist, particularly those damn Russkies.

137

So what are you actually taking away from it then? What value are you ascribing to it exactly? Are you literally taking it to mean that Republicans are better Americans than Democrats or something along those lines? Or are you simply taking from it that Republicans on average rate themselves as more patriotic? If the latter, then so what? What does that actually say about either party? If the former, then I think that’s a ridiculous conclusion from the available data. If something else, then what?

I guess what I’m asking here is what, exactly, are you trying to get us to admit or agree to? What’s the aim of the thread, really?

138

I am not claiming that it is useless, I am just lacking the imagination to come up with any use for it, other than forecasting upcoming sales of patriotic brand merchandise (made in china) for the next patriotic holiday.

Approval numbers are useful to the parties, as they forecast how a party is going to do in an upcoming election, and what they need to do to shore up their base, get their message out, or encourage voters. The happiness poll at least defines happiness

far better than they define “patriotism.” It’s not all that useful a poll, in some ways, as it doesn’t really create any predictions, but at the same time, it has a benefit, in that if you look at another country’s policies and consider adopting them, you can get an idea of whether that would make your population happier or less happy.
For instance, sometimes people say we should have certain policies in the US that say Norway has. Well, you cannot, obviously, just pick a policy from another country and assume it will work to make people happy here, but at least it gives you an idea of what countries are worth studying on how they have solved certain problems. Just as you may look at Burundi’s policies as things to avoid.

139

Basically. A patriot works for the betterment of the country.

A soldier who put down his life for the country may have been a patriot, he might have been a us vs. themer, he might just have been some guy who wanted a job that let him kill folks. Without knowing the individual, I couldn’t say. But I know, for example, that everyone in Congress is a patriot, because they spend their days trying to make the country a better place (in their minds). I know that the Unabomber was a patriot, because he was actively trying to kill people to make the country a better place (in his mind), I know that Stephen Colbert is a patriot because he gets on TV every day and tries to sell people on what would make the country a better place (in his mind).

A person who complacently waves the flag, with little more thought about why they’re waving this flag versus another one beyond it being the “home team”, is just being a sports fan. They might well be passionate about it. They might even lay down their life for it. But that’s true of sports fans as well.

140

I think the OP is misguided. The two parties have different ideas about what patriotism means. To Republicans, it’s chanting “USA! USA!”, putting ribbon stickers on your car, saying “I support the troops” often, throwing a hissy fit if someone doesn’t stand for the national anthem, sharing Facebook glurge showing outrage that kids no longer say the pledge in school (news flash, they still do), supporting whatever stupid war we’ve sucked ourselves into, hating people from other countries, hating people because they don’t look like you or pray like you or speak your language or love the gender that you would rather they do, thinking that the US can do no wrong and that we must support the president, so long as it’s a white male. The liberal response is- fuck that shit. If that is the definition of patriotism, then call be proud not to be patriotic. We work to make the nation a better place for everybody, and that often includes pointing out what is wrong and who is wronged by it.