American Compass has become controversial in the DC set for their embrace of more communitarian (let's put it that way) economics.

But one of the points they regularly make, a true and important one, is that Republican rhetoric about "free markets" and "entrepreneurship" and "opportunity", whether good or bad, does not resonate with a majority of the public, and even a majority of Republican voters. And the purpose of a party and its elected officials is to serve their voters, yes? Yes?

Anyway, this is why we were fascinated by this new survey (done by YouGov on a representative sample of 6,000 Americans) from American Compass on these sets of themes. Whether you like these results or not, they are worth paying attention to.

Here is the main takeaway: "Americans do not necessarily think of the American Dream as 'the opportunity to go as far as your talents and hard work take you; anyone, regardless of where they start, can rise to the top.' Indeed, they are as likely to define it as 'the promise of dignity, equality, and a job that supports a family; everyone, regardless of where they start, can build a decent life.' For the vast majority, concepts like ‘free markets' and 'economic liberty' are not fundamental values."

What's particularly interesting about this poll is that they surveyed Americans on both the values they see prevailing in America today and the ones that they would ideally prefer. And Americans see America today as "prioritizing mobility and consumerism" while they would prefer more promotion of rootedness.

One fascinating result: faced with the prompt "It is most important to me to live in an America that…" the top choice was “is a great place to raise a family” and the second choice was “honors our values and traditions.”

Also very interesting: even Americans who see "free markets" as a fundamental American value (only 26% of the population) believe in a level of regulation that would make a libertarian think tanker faint. Most Americans (57%), and two-thirds of Republicans (69%), prefer free markets that “protect the American market” to ones that “have free trade” Even among those who see free markets as a fundamental value, 67% say “protect the American market” and 61% say “employers / workers have protections”

Again: you may agree or disagree with these findings, but in a democracy, particularly one which suffers from a total discredit of its elites, it is important to think about them and to think about policies that don't get too far ahead of our skis in terms of bringing our fellow Americans along with us.

Policy News You Need To Know

#Science — Yesterday we wrote about how science is badly broken and needs fixing. Today, Chris Rufo has yet another one of his bombshell exposés on the NIH, whose funding of DEI initiatives has exploded during the Biden-Harris Administration. "The NIH has created more than 100 separate DEI initiatives, routing millions of dollars toward fighting 'systemic racism' and funding ideological projects, such as a 'Black Tweet detection algorithm,' instead of medical science," Rufo says.

#Bias — Speaking of left-wing corruption of institutions, Pirate Wires has an exposé of how left-wing pro-Hamas activists have taken over Wikipedia's coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This isn't just about Wikipedia or the Middle East, it's about the institutional power of the left.

#FamilyPolicy — The tax fight next year is going to be huge, and who knows what will come out of it, but JD Vance has once again spoken out in favor of his ambitious and pluralistic approach to supporting families.

#FamilyPolicy — Speaking of: very interesting finding from Lyman Stone: women who work remotely have way higher birth rates.

#AmericanManufacturing — Bombshell news, if confirmed: "The share of chips manufactured at TSMC’s facility in Phoenix that are usable is about 4 percentage points higher than comparable facilities in Taiwan," according to Bloomberg. If this is true and continues, it would mean significant change for the US economy and global geopolitics down the line. It would also cause naysayers who claimed DEI would ruin CHIPS Act projects or that industrial policy is impossible to rethink.

#Immigration — It's telling that during a closely-fought election campaign, Justin Trudeau has called for slowing (not stopping or reversing) the rate of immigration into Canada on a "temporary" basis to "let our economy catch up." For many decades, Canada was hailed as a model for immigration, with its "points-based system." The problem is that if you have a "points-based system" and you inflate the value of the point (and you open the door to refuges, and you have a liberal family migration policy) it doesn't mean much. As the writer Wesley Yang points out, "During the period of mass immigration under Trudeau's rule, per capita GDP declined, the health service cratered, housing prices skyrocketed, government debt exploded, inflation surged, the government bought off the media and became nakedly authoritarian in response to protest, invoking emergency powers unwarranted by the situation, and now 4 percent of all deaths are euthanasia enacted by state doctors." Even for high-skilled immigration, the numbers matter.

#BigTech — The pugnacious Missouri AG Andrew Bailey has announced a new investigation of Google for censoring conservative speech.

#Governance — We chuckled reading this headline, but it's actually infuriating. From ATR: "74 of 76 IRS Taxpayer Advocate Service Phone Numbers Go Unanswered, Finds Inspector General." Conservatives should not be the party of no government, they should be the party of competent government.

#Veterans — One of the things that we particularly appreciate from RAND is their coverage of veterans' issues. Here, a new report on a very important topic: programs (government and nonprofit) designed to help veterans transition to the civilian workforce. "The federal government spends more than $13 billion annually on veteran employment transition programs," the authors write, but "there is a lack of outcome data to measure the effectiveness of federal veteran employment transition programs." Meanwhile, private nonprofit programs seem to do better: "Nonprofit organizations often provide personalized support for military-to-civilian employment transitions. These programs can offer tailored assistance that federal programs might lack."

Friday Essays

You should "celebrate Kirktober" by supporting the excellent journal The University Bookman, which is produced by the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal.

We really enjoyed this long column by Ross Douthat, which is in effect a joint review of several books, by David Bentley Hart, Rod Dreher, and Spencer Klavan ("dream blunt rotation", as the kids say (don't do drugs)), which together make a compelling, or at least interesting, argument that the world might be set for a religious revival as modern science not only fails to answer life's deepest question but, sometimes, seems to point to a Creator.

“Over the past five years, Shakespeare’s presence on American stages has fallen a staggering 58 percent,” writes Drew Lichtenberg, artistic producer at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, in a New York Times essay. This is why we are skeptical of claims that we have reached "peak wokeness." The problem is that a lot of stuff has been destroyed, and slowing the rate of destruction, or even stopping it, is not rebuilding. Maybe there has been a decrease in the number of pink-haired activists screaming to get big bad dead white guy Shakespeare off the stage, but that just means maintaining the current status quo, when what we would need is a Shakespeare renaissance. Same thing with, say, core curricula at elite schools. Maybe the "decolonizing" has stopped (temporarily?), but we don't see any "recolonizing", which would be the true sign that we are getting past wokeness.

Fun fact: did you know that claims that absinthe drives people insane were created by the French wine lobby to agitate for a ban? Absinthe, which is alcohol distilled from herbs, is not more or less toxic than any other distilled liquor. The ravages attributed to absinthe in the late 19th century were really the product of alcohol consumption in general and, in the cases of alleged insanity, most likely syphilis (don't need to draw a picture to explain why absinthe consumption and syphilis infection would correlate). The absinthe moral panic is also the reason why pastis became such a part of French culture, as when absinthe was banned many people had acquired a taste for anise-flavored liquor, and pastis became the replacement of choice. (Many, many French traditions are the result, intended or not, of government policy.) Anyway, this is totally unrelated to this fun essay in Air Mail magazine about adventures in absinthe.

"Darkness pervades Austen’s novels," writes Peter Leithart in First Things. "Readers gloss over the shadows because we read Austen through the glittering lens of Pride and Prejudice." But no, it's a lot more complicated than that…

At The Daily Signal, EPPC's Patrick T. Brown reviews Conn Carroll's new book on the decline of marriage, "Sex and the Citizen."