Good News: The Fourth of July Is A Rightwing Celebration

This "study's" numeric conclusions are dumb as ballz, given that we are talking about statistical noise here (key findings include meager 2%, 1%, and 3% differentials, which are almost certainly not statistically significant).

Even though they lack any evidence for this, then, they still are probably right:

"Fourth of July celebrations in the United States shape the nation's political landscape by forming beliefs and increasing participation, primarily in favor of the Republican Party," said the report from Harvard.

"The political right has been more successful in appropriating American patriotism and its symbols during the 20th century. Survey evidence also confirms that Republicans consider themselves more patriotic than Democrats. According to this interpretation, there is a political congruence between the patriotism promoted on Fourth of July and the values associated with the Republican party. Fourth of July celebrations in Republican dominated counties may thus be more politically biased events that socialize children into Republicans," write Harvard Kennedy School Assistant Professor David Yanagizawa-Drott and Bocconi University Assistant Professor Andreas Madestam.

Their findings also suggest that Democrats gain nothing from July 4th parades, likely a shocking result for all the Democratic politicians who march in them.

What the left will say is that the right has "hijacked patriotism."

We didn't hijack it. We didn't need to hijack it.

You abandoned it.

We are merely caring for and cherishing what you scorned and then discarded and then derided and then ridiculed.

The right imposes no "rule" that the left cannot celebrate the founding of this nation. The left imposes that "rule" on itself.

Got nothing to do with us.

Occasionally you hear a more old-style liberal (rather than the vicious transnational deviant progressivists of the New Left) scream that he's a patriot, too, and he's offended that patriotism is considered a rightwing value.

But he's screaming in vain. I'll accept that many of the older-school liberals have the patriotic vibe.

But will they accept in turn that most of their political confederates, the left and New Left, hate the idea of patriotism and openly mock it?

We on the right didn't steal patriotism from older-school liberals.

Your nihilistic political confreres on the left stole it from you.

posted by Ace at 12:50 PM

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