Parents Distrust Democratic Party

The Washington Times reports on a study by the Progressive Policy Institute (which is tied to the Democratic Party) that shows how parents distrust the Democrats on cultural issues and especially on account of the party’s ties with Hollywood:

“Democrats will not do better with married parents until they recognize one simple truth: Parents have a beef with popular culture. As they see it, the culture is getting ever more violent, materialistic, and misogynistic, and they are losing their ability to protect their kids from morally corrosive images and messages,” said the study’s author, Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, co-director of the National Marriage Project of Rutgers University and a senior fellow at PPI.

But it’s not so easy for the Dems to change its outlook:

In the 2004 election, married parents supported President Bush over Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts by nearly 20 percentage points. Mr. Bush frequently talked about the importance of faith and morals in his campaign and the role that parents played in raising their children. Mr. Kerry and his party, much of whose campaign funding and political support came from liberals in the entertainment industry, rarely touched the issue.

As Eric Alterman wrote in last summer’s Atlantic Monthly (subscription required), Hollywood is one of the key bases of contributors to the Democratic Party, up there with the trial lawyers and teachers’ associations. The Dems can’t court parents without also alienating their core contributors. This puts them in a very tough situation.

So don’t expect them to appeal to parents’ concerns except perhaps in a superficial way. You can expect various leaders like Joe Lieberman to make speeches denouncing Hollywood. However, the Dems are not going to make the culture of personal responsibility one of the prongs of its campaign unless they find an alternate funding base.

On the other hand, David Brooks argues that American kids don’t really want to imitate Hollywood debauchery. They treat is as an ironic escapism. Perhaps. I do notice that little girls aren’t as likely to dress as Britney Spears trollopes as they were a year or so ago. But these things change.

Keep this in mind as Hillary Clinton courts Black Baptist preachers and DNC Chairman Howard Dean portrays himself as a friend of religious Americans.

UPDATE: I noticed Joseph Knippenberg’s posting shortly after I posted this.