Worldwide Value Shift?

With the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president Tuesday, American politics are shifting a good deal to the right again. Since before the election, surveys had indicated that U.S. voters would vote significantly more conservatively than in the last election.

A survey by Statista Consumer Insights also supported this: As of July, around a third of those surveyed in the U.S. said that they thought they had been becoming more conservative personally. In contrast, just 23 percent saw themselves becoming more progressive. The remaining 44 percent did not feel any inner change in their values ​​or said they did not know how to answer the question.

Among German survey participants, the share of those turning more conservative (21 percent) was also larger than the share of those feeling more progressive (15 percent), but the share of people seeing no difference was also bigger. This is in line with other Statista survey data showing that centrism is more widespread in Germany than in the United States. Like in the U.S., becoming more conservative was common in Japan. 34 percent saw themselves leaning politically to the right more, while only ten percent felt a tendency to the left.

The United Kingdom was the only one of the four countries surveyed where the share of people turning more progressive ​​dominated. The leftward swing was also evident in the last general election, in which the Labor Party was able to achieve a clear majority. Frustration with the Conservatives had surged after two short-lived governments by the party that made some controversial domestic and international policy decisions during that period and at times was subject to public ridicule. Other Statista data showed a political distribution of the United Kingdom similar to that of Germany. While about as many people identified as centrists, more than in Germany saw themselves on the far right - an instant that could now swing towards the opposite once more.