LIKE CLOCKWORK: As America Increasingly Embraces Socialism, Fewer Households Give To Charity

If socialists actually meant any of their platitudes about the needy, a rise in socialism should have a very different consequence.

Let’s take a look at two very different statistics that have been recently given to us by pollsters, and see if they tell us anything about America.

Now that the masks have come off of Democrats and they are showing open support to socialism as a worldview. Meanwhile their defacto propanda arms in Hollywood, News Media, Big Tech and Academia have been busy providing the nation with a steady diet of the praise of socialism and the systematic denunciation traditional US values.

It should surprise nobody that their Big Lie has been moving the needle of public perceptions. Results are in:

61% of Americans aged between 18 and 24 have a positive reaction to the word “socialism” — beating out “capitalism” at 58%. Overall, 39% of Americans are well-disposed toward socialism, but the gulf remains wide for men and those aged over 55. — Axios

It’s not just the lefties buying in, either, per AXIOS:

Further down the same article was the claim:

‘Politicians looking to attack opponents to their left can no longer use the word “socialist” as an all-purpose pejorative. Increasingly, it’s worn as a badge of pride.’

So, they would have us believe socialism is a permanent feature of American Culture? Time will tell. Similar claims were made back in Carter’s day.

But as a snapshot of who we are right now, it is a handy measuring rod that tells us something about ourselves and our attitudes — especially our attitudes toward money and helping people in need.

With socialism on the rise, and ‘from each according to their ability to each according to their need’ a foundational belief among socialists, one would expect a rise in socialism to show a corresponding rise in charitable giving.

Such generosity and care for the needy, after all, is the very heartbeat of their philosophy. It would be shocking, would it not, were we NOT to see a corresponding rise in generosity. Right?

It just so happens that we have recent poll numbers about charitable giving in the US. Since these numbers predate the Pandemic, we can’t explain away any changes that way.

For the first time in nearly two decades, only half of U.S. households donated to a charity, according to a study released Tuesday. The findings confirm a trend worrying experts: Donations to charitable causes are reaching record highs, but the giving is done by a smaller and smaller slice of the total American population.

The study, published every other year by Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, comes from a survey that has been tracking the giving patterns of more than 9,000 households since 2000, when 66% of U.S. households donated to a charitable organization. That number dropped to 49.6% in 2018, the latest year with comprehensive figures from those households.

…Experts say many factors are contributing to the decline. The percentage of Americans who give to religious causes has decreased in tandem with attendance at worship services as the number of Americans not affiliated with any religion grows. Separately, the share of Americans who give to secular causes began to drop following the economic turbulence of the Great Recession, but it hasn’t bounced back. It reached a new low — 42% — in 2018, the study said.

…The study found only about a third of households headed by someone under the age of 40 gave to charity in 2018, a trend Osili believes will be a challenge for charities. — CBS

Some of the slack is being picked up by high-roller philanthropists, but the causes important to them tend to look a lot different than many of the boots-on-the-ground community-based ones favored by lower and middle class donors.

One article commenting on the same pattern of red-state vs blue-state voter giving offered some insights onto the trend several years ago.

The study, which compared IRS data from 2012 with data from 2006, showed that the 17 most “generous” states — as measured by the percentage of their income they donated to charity — voted for Mitt Romney in the last presidential election. The seven states at the bottom of the list, meanwhile, voted for Barack Obama.

…“Not to be too simplistic about it, but if you believe that government should take care of basic social services, then you’re going to go that way,” Palmer told International Business Times. “If you think charities should take care of things, and not government, then you’re probably going to give more generously to charity.”

A more verifiable metric, Palmer said, is the role of religion. The states that topped the Chronicle’s generosity list also tended to be the ones with the highest rate of churchgoers. “We’ve been looking at this over many different years, and we know that religion matters a lot,” she said. It could be that the faithful are generally more inclined to donate their money to charitable causes. Or, it could be that the faithful are more likely to donate money to their own churches and religious communities.

A quick look at the interactive map compiled by the Chronical reveals that the “Bible Belt” states such as Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia gave away a higher percentage of their income, while states in the Northeast, Midwest and West Coast gave less.– IBTimes

Surely these bleeding heart lefties will make up for lost time, and donate generously to the truly destitute, to soup kitchens literacy programs and street outreach. Right?

Yeah, well — I wouldn’t hold my breath on that one.

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