Moral Decline in America?

In the midst of unprecedented national division, Republicans and Democrats have apparently found something upon which they agree: that US moral values are “poor.” A May 1-17 Gallup survey offered a sobering assessment of Americans’ negative views of their country’s moral trajectory.

For Better or Worse

Gallup reported a 12-percentage-point increase (to 56%) from last year in the number of Americans who rate moral values in the United States as “poor,” a record high. The number of respondents who say moral values are “getting worse” rose 14 points, to 80%. Gallup has been conducting this inquiry since 2002.

This measure is limited by vagueness in how “moral values” are defined. Predictably, Republicans and Democrats differ on moral priorities and perspectives. As Gallup observed, “While Americans across party lines generally agree on the poor state of moral values in the U.S., they likely disagree about its meaning and causes.” It is also unclear whether this standard of “moral values” pertains to the public or to government policies.

In the history of the Gallup survey, Republicans have generally been more likely to rate the country’s moral values as poor than Democrats. Gallup reported:

“The gap was widest in 2024, when 73% of Republicans and 28% of Democrats held that view, a difference of 45 points. The pattern flipped last year following President Donald Trump’s return to office, with Democrats outpacing Republicans by 11 points.”

This dramatic pivot reflects the extent to which partisan alignment infuses Americans’ moral worldview. Similarly, the study found that “Republicans have led in pessimism about the trajectory of moral values, peaking at 97% in 2023, before dropping sharply to 39% in 2025 after Trump began his second term in office.” Yet regardless of political affiliation, Gallup notes this is “the first time in Gallup’s trend that majorities of all three groups have concurrently rated moral values as poor.”

 Societal Rift and Diverging Moral Worldviews

Through the lens of growing socio-cultural rifts in the fabric of American society (likely sown by post-modernism, utilitarianism, secularism, and other sundry rejections of God), the world has never looked so morally gloomy. It’s just that the right and left differ on what is moral.

For many on the left, conservatives who oppose gay marriage, puberty blockers for minors, open borders, or Hamas are emblematic of immoral societal decay: homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, Zionism. Trump Derangement Syndrome fuels outrage against the president, and thus anyone who supports him – labeled racist Christian nationalists, misogynistic bigots, or evil subhumans – is viewed immoral. In this milieu, ICE agents are evil and illegal immigrants are victims.

On the conservative side, the gay rights movement, that was supposed to have been resolved with legalized gay marriage, has expanded into a rainbow of sexual orientations and gender identities, with  children learning in school about a variety of sexual behaviors and considering the use of puberty blockers and surgeries. Conservatives view open borders as a reckless, immoral ideological position that endangers women and children. Supporting Hamas in the name of the Palestinian people seems heinous to many on the right, let alone justifying the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel. BLM riots are not viewed as philanthropic.

Surely Americans can share in bipartisan moral disapprobation of Jeffrey Epstein and his clientele, public officials who commit sexual assault or harassment, bribery, fraud, and other offenses. Yet even these are often highly politicized: One man’s fraud is another man’s reparations; one woman’s bribery is another’s equity.

Church and State?

The Gallup poll revealed another striking partisan shift regarding how people viewed government involvement in promoting moral values. Republicans have consistently favored such participation for decades, but Democrats have swung powerfully the other way, a shift that has accelerated rapidly since Trump 2.0 began. Gallup reported:

“Democrats show the starkest contrast across the three readings, with 58% in favor in 1996, 43% in 2006 (during Republican George W. Bush’s presidency) and 29% today. Fully two-thirds of Democrats now say the government should not be involved.”

To conservatives, this smacks of hypocrisy. Teachers’ unions have used public school classrooms as moral pulpits for liberal causes for decades, including active shooter drills, birth control and abortion support, transgender “affirming care,” critical race theory, alphabet pride, climate alarmism, and patriarchy pitter-patter. BLM and pride flags grace many public school hallways, flagpoles, and classroom walls. All of these are moralizing; all are antithetical to traditional Christian positions; all have been undertaken in recent years by liberal edicts or actions.

Many young people are returning to orthodox Christianity, monogamy, and other worldviews held in disdain by the secular left. It may be that in the future, Gallup’s morality poll will see an upturn in moral optimism. However, the hope that Americans currently share a bipartisan agreement about the poor moral state of the nation fades when the opposing perspectives of moral codes are considered. Americans will never agree that the nation is becoming more moral if they can’t agree on what “moral” means.