LARRY KUDLOW: This is why conservatives are happier

Like I said, conservatives are happy. Period. Liberals are not. Period. A couple of new surveys show this. I'm sorry to see it because I don't like unhappiness. I know some Democrats, liberals who are ok. A brand-new study shows that Republicans are happier in their marriages than Democrats. Heck, I knew that. My saintly wife and I are marching toward our 36th anniversary. 

The American Family Survey found that 48% of Republican men are "completely satisfied" in their marriage and 42% of Republican married woman are completely satisfied. On the flip side, only 36% of Democrat married men and 29% of Democrat married women said they are completely satisfied. 

Republicans tend to embrace traditional gender roles while Democrats tend to question it. Modern liberal Democrats attribute gender roles to "establish gender norms they deem oppressive." 

The survey found that among liberals, "stay-at-home husbands" are in, while concepts like "the man is the head of the household" are offensive and out. Masculinity is toxic and "stay-at-home mom" is code for "slave." This is the liberal left woke culture among unhappy people and actually, maybe even more important, the survey found in general conservatives comparatively greater happiness goes beyond marriage. 

CONSERVATIVE TEENAGERS ARE GENERALLY HAPPIER THAN THEIR LIBERAL PEERS, STUDY FINDS 

Get this: 37% of conservative men reported they are completely satisfied with their lives vs. 21% of liberal men. The biggest discrepancy is between women, liberal women are the least happy with only 15% stating they are completely satisfied in their lives contrasted with 31% of conservative women. 

Wow. This is most unfortunate. I prefer happiness myself, and I'm not a victim of anything. Also, I know some liberals who are happy and have great marriages, but that's a personal observation. This survey from the Center on American life gives a much broader view. The survey also reveals that conservative couples tend to know that traditional values and lifestyles are the best at cultivating loving and fulfilling lives. Nothing wrong with conservative, traditional values and lifestyles. 

Yet another study, just out says conservative teenagers are generally happier than their liberal peers. This is from the journal of social science and medicine - mental health. It looked at 12th graders from 2005 to 2018 and those aligned with conservatism, which was defined in the study as "support of individual liberty, right-wing social and religious values and unregulated free markets." Liberalism was defined as "support of equal opportunity, free but semi-regulated markets, civil liberties and social justice." 

The research found that conservatives reported lower average depressive affect, self-derogation and loneliness scores and higher self-esteem scores than all other groups." In other words, conservative kids are not depressed, they don't beat themselves up, they're not lonely, and they have much more self-esteem. 

Columbia University sociologist Musa al-Gharbi reported in an article for American Affairs that conservatives not only have higher levels of happiness, they report having higher levels of meaning in their lives, and I will "conservatives are more likely to be patriotic and religious," Mr. al-Gharbi writes. Now there's more. "They are more likely to be happily married and less likely to divorce. Religiosity, in turn correlates with greater subjective and objective well-being. So does patriotism. So does marriage." 

Interestingly, New York Times columnist David Brooks, who started as a conservative but has become much more liberal down through the years, but he writes "many on the left began to suffer from what you might call maladaptive sadness," with its three main features being a "catastrophizing mentality," "extreme sensitivity to harm" and a "culture of denunciation." He went on to say they believe "The American Dream is a sham, climate change is so unstoppable, systemic racism is eternal."  

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Wow, again, you know, nothing in life is perfect, But it just seems like liberals young and old, married or single, just believe that everything in life is bad and that really America is bad and instead of working to make things better, like a hard at work job that is well done, in any field, liberals would just rather be unhappy, pessimistic, complaining, victimized. 

For my part, in my life, I've come to believe that faith and hard work solves a lot of problems. Also, happier people spend more money, and invest more to promote widespread prosperity. 

I also believe that America with all its freedoms and its free market capitalism is the greatest country in all of history and I also believe there are many imperfections, but you can work hard to try to fix them. I'm sorry to hear about all these unhappy liberals. Maybe they should just go out and marry a Republican, but I will say Save America. Conserve and support our traditional values. 

This article is adapted from Larry Kudlow’s opening commentary on the March 15, 2023, edition of "Kudlow."