Our Monday Daily Chart on the Wall Street Journal survey (which has garnered widespread attention beyond Power Line) showing the precipitous decline of traditional American values such as patriotism and religious faith was very sobering—and perhaps a little suspicious. Huge shifts such as were shown in their findings ought to prompt a closer look at the methodology.
Sure enough, Patrick Ruffini, a very shrewd political analyst and survey designer with Echelon Insights, says not so fast. Writing on his Substack site, Ruffini says: “If these numbers had been produced by my firm, I would immediately assume we had made a mistake and send them back to an analyst to double check.” Sure enough, he spotted some changes in the WSJ’s survey methodology between 2019 and today.
Worth reading the whole thing, but for shorthand, Ruffini offers this chart from Gallup, which has used consistent methodology (chiefly live telephone interviews) for the last 20 years. It shows a decline in patriotism, but nowhere near as large as the WSJ/NORC survey:
P.S. I think it is safe to assume that the dropoff in the Gallup series is mostly among Democrats.
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