American flag
© Todd Berkey/The Tribune-Democrat via APThe sun rises behind an American flag posted outside of Petrunik's Kitchen, Door and Moore store at the old Eureka Department store in Windber, Pa., Wednesday, July 10, 2019.
A new poll finds that most U.S. likely voters believe American society and culture is in decline — including large majorities of self-identified Democrats, Republicans and independents.

The survey by the Trafalgar Group revealed that 76.8% of respondents from all political affiliations said that "American society and culture is in a state of decay," compared to only 9.8% who said "a state of progress." The remaining 13.4% said they were unsure.

Voters on both sides of the aisle are unhappy with the current state of hot-button social and culture war issues for different reasons, said pollster Robert Cahaly, who founded Trafalgar Group in 2016.

"Social and cultural decline is in the eye of the beholder, but what's clear is that everyone is unhappy," Mr. Cahaly said. "People on the left think America isn't 'woke' enough despite the pushback and people on the right think America is too 'woke' in a way that's being pushed on them."

There's also a middle segment of voters whose views are reflected by comedians like Jerry Seinfeld, who the pollster noted has announced he won't do skits on college campuses anymore for fear of getting "canceled."

"There's a mix of people in the middle, like Bill Maher, who like the 'woke agenda' but maybe think things have gone a little too far," Mr. Cahaly said.


Comment: Is it possible that this 'middle' lot agree with certain liberal ideas but not necessarily the 'woke agenda' per se, which has actually just hijacked previously progressive issues such as equal opportunity for its own aims.


Voters are particularly unhappy with the state of culture clashes on race, gender, sexuality, income inequality, government and the environment.

"People feel like everywhere they turn, there's an agenda being pushed on them, and they fear it's going in a direction they don't want to see," he said.


Comment: This perhaps reveals that a significant number of people aren't as oblivious as to what's really going on as one might suppose.


"For example, average people want clean air and clean water, but they don't want to pay $4 for gas."

Trafalgar's poll found that most likely Democrat, Republican and independent voters believe the nation's culture and society is crumbling, though the share of Republicans who felt that way was much larger than the other two groups.

Mr. Cahaly said the divisive state of national politics has contributed to voters from both parties finding a rare common ground with their discontent.


Comment: And yet, the government and its propaganda media has them believing that they're actually at odds with each other, and that the other is to blame.


"Politicians on both sides have gotten to the point where they don't have rational conversations with each other and the emotion is so high," he said. "We're at a crossroads and it's going to settle somewhere in the middle eventually, but our politics are so binary right now that it's making a lot of people unhappy."