In my last blog, I talked about the results of a recent Gallup poll which found that 90% of Americans are “satisfied” and 65% of them are “very satisfied.” 93% of Republicans are “satisfied” with 80% reporting they are “very satisfied.”  Consumer confidence is at an all-time high.   A majority of Americans expect their personal finances to be better a year from now.  This happiness, especially among Republicans manifested itself in the New Hampshire primary where Donald Trump received almost 130,000 votes even though he was running virtually unopposed.  The number of happy campers who turned out simply to show their thanks was considerably greater than those who turned out for Obama (49,080) in 2012, for George W. Bush (53,962) in 2004, Bill Clinton (76,797) in 1996, and even Ronald Reagan (65,033) in 1984. 

But not everyone is happy.

Though this satisfaction and happiness has increased considerably in the years since President Trump took office, there remains a portion of the citizenry who are not satisfied, who are not happy with life.  And they are to be found among the most radical of the Democrats.  Understandable, perhaps, that the party of “the Resistance” would distain any satisfaction in the booming economy, the decades lower unemployment, the return of manufacturing jobs to the U.S., and increasing respect for the U.S. around the world.  In India last week, President Trump appeared in a stadium that was packed with over 110,000 Indians wearing white hats decked with the words “Namaste Trump” and the U.S. and Indian flags.  As he entered, they chanted “Namaste Trump” literally “we bow before you Trump.”  Freedom fighters in Hong Kong sang the American National Anthem and carried Old Glory as they protested in the streets.  Iranian demonstrators have also been emboldened by the verbal support of the U.S. and the murder of Soleimani, the Iranianterrorist master-mind. 

But it is more than the left simply refusing to admit that life in the U.S. is considerably better under President Trump.  Studies have shown that Democrats are simply not as happy as Republicans and that extends to liberals and conservatives around the world.  In a new study of people in 16 different countries, researchers from the University of Southern California and the University of Utah found that conservatives reported feeling there was more meaning and purpose in life than liberals did.  The Pew Research Center discovered in a study in 2010 (during the Obama years) that Republicans were happier than Democrats even when they were in power and getting all of the liberal ideas passed that they wanted.  The more conservative a Republican was, the happier he was, but conservative Republicans were happier than conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans were happier than liberal Democrats.  Party affiliation seemed to make a great difference.

In addition, Republicans are more giving. Even Republican billionaires give more to charity than Democratic billionaires.  And 59% of the time a Republican will tip more than 15% in a restaurant, while a Democrat will tip that much only 46% of the time.  Liberal writer Nicholas Kristof says that “Liberals show tremendous compassion in pushing for generous government spending to help the neediest people at home and abroad. Yet when it comes to individual contributions to charitable causes, liberals are cheapskates.”

The Hoover Institution’s Peter Schweizer says the liberal’s approach to com                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               munity charity could be summed up in this bumper sticker: “Think Globally, Sit on Your Butt Locally.”

Republicans have reported being happier than have Democrats since the General Social survey began in 1972 and according to Big Think it doesn’t matter who is in power in the government. Thus the entire liberal dogma that conservatives are authoritarian, dogmatic, intolerant of others, fearful, low in self-esteem and uncomfortable with complex modes of thinking or as  candidate Barack Obama put it in 2008, “bitter,” as they “cling to guns or religion” has been proven by scholars to be patently false.

As they have studied the differences in the happiness quotient, they have drawn some striking parallels between conservatives around the world and liberals.  Most conservatives are married; most liberals are not and the difference has nothing to do with age.  If two people with like demographics are compared and one is married and the other is not, the married individual will be 18% more likely to say he/she is happy. In addition, faith enters into the picture.  According to the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, conservatives who practice a faith outnumber religious liberals in America nearly four to one. And, yes, religious participants are nearly twice as likely to say they are very happy about their lives as are secularists (43 percent to 23 percent).  Even more striking is this statistic: Fifty-two percent of married, religious, politically conservative people with kids are very happy — versus only 14 percent of single, secular, liberal people without kids.

Faith in God and the loving support of family enables a conservative to see the free enterprise system positively.  They continue to believe that each American has the ability to get ahead on the basis of achievement and hard work, and they can point to examples such as HUD Secretary Ben Carson who came out of a black ghetto to prove their belief.  Liberals are more likely to see people as victims of their skin color, their ethnicity, their gender, their start in life, and doubt that without government help individuals can climb out of poverty. They fear those who are different, blaming all their woes and their own lack of ambition on others,  while at the same time chanting how diverse they are.  They fear that the world will be destroyed by the use of fossil fuels and that only they can prevent its demise. In their fear, which is constantly fed by the media and the Democratic Party, they come to believe that only the Democrats can save them, even though it is often the Democrats who have contributed to the positions in which they find themselves.  Conservative activist Scott Presser has gathered a group of volunteers and, beginning with Baltimore, has traveled to several Democratic-controlled cities to clean up the garbage, the used needles, and the human waste that the cities themselves refuse to deal with.  Ironically, he has met with mobs of protestors, urging him to go home and to leave their messes.  They have been so indoctrinated in the idea of governmental answers for everything that even when the government refuses to act, they cannot abide a conservative trying to help them.  

It is truly sad to be a Democrat, unhappily waiting for an unresponsive government to pick up the trash on your own doorstep, to educate you in its poorly run schools while refusing to allow you to attend another where you might actually learn.  When the Democratic Party was founded in 1828, it called for limited government and supported slavery.  It has changed mightily over the years, pushing now for more and more government control of individual lives, but its support for slavery has changed only in so far as it now enslaves minorities in the poor enclaves of its filth-encrusted cities, denying them the ability to get out.  Democrats view themselves as unhappy victims rather than overcomers, waiting for the government to save them. Unfortunately, it never does.

Fortunately, in the era of President Trump, more and more Democrats are reaching for success and happiness, and more and more of them (including one recent member of the House of Representatives and 8 elected state officials in Mississippi) are abandoning the Democratic Party and becoming Republicans.  The Party of happiness welcomes all comers!

https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/gv33pw/are-conservatives-really-happier-than-liberals

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/07/why-conservatives-find-life-more-meaningful-than-liberals/566105/

https://thefederalist.com/2019/11/04/research-finds-conservatives-are-more-happy-generous-and-purposeful-than-liberals/

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/want-to-live-a-happier-life-be-a-conservative

https://townhall.com/columnists/wayneallynroot/2020/02/16/a-trump-valentines-day-story-n256137

hyyps://nytimes.com/2012/07/09/opinion/sunday/conservatives-are-happy-and-extremists-are-happiest-of-all.html