As interesting as this conversation about how legitimate a story broken by the American equivalent of the Daily Mail is, we've got far more important news: I have committed the sin of electoralism, and I didn't even get killed by Proud Boys doing it.
To commemorate this occasion, PRRI has
finally released some good fucking research. Let's get into it.
What The Fuck Is Wrong With My Country- A big conclusion of this research is that Fox News is extremely statistically important for the American right, such that much of this research separates Republicans into Fox News Republicans and Non-Fox News Republicans, which consistently represents a dramatic step to the right if they do watch Fox.
- Unbelievably, majorities of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents all believe that America's best days are ahead of it. This delusion is actually higher than in 2016.
- For the first time, a majority of Americans say that things are better in America today than in the 1950s. And it only took 70 years.
- Only about 15% of Republicans think that racism, climate change, and inequality are important issues.
- The glorious Religiously Unaffiliated Chad overlords are the only religious grouping who has climate change in their top three issues. And it's the third issue. We are so fucked. Conversely, only white evangelical Protestants have abortion or terrorism in the top three issues, because they are completely bugfuck insane. The most common top three issue among all groups is, of course, the Rona.
- Negative polarization is almost an equal mirror between the parties when asked if the GOP is controlled by racists and if the Dems are controlled by socialists. 10% of the party itself believes it, 47% of independents believe it, and 80% of the opposition party believes it.
- Religious pluralism continues to be unpopular. About 35% believe society should be plural, 25% believe society should be Christian only, and about 35% believe society should be Christian mostly. As you might expect, only the unaffiliated and those belonging to non-Christian religions have a majority support of pluralism. On the bright side, everyone else except evangelical Protestants are in the mostly Christian instead of only Christian camp. Hurrah.
- Surprisingly, there's been a dramatic decline in saying Islam is at odds with American values among the Democratic Party. 43% in 2016 to 26% in 2020.
- Racial pluralism is kind of better, but also terrifying. About 50% say that society should be racially pluralistic, and 10% say it should be "Western European" only. 40% of Americans apparently think they should take a middle ground between these two points. Jesus fuck.
- The..."racial centrists" are more Republicans than anything else, though 17% of Republicans were willing to endorse the Whites Only position. On the bright side, a 52% majority of Americans say that they strongly disagree with being bothered by the shift in America's racial makeup. 27% of Republicans say that they are bothered by it.
- 36% say America is a Christian nation, 40% say it was a Christian nation but isn't anymore, and 22% are correct that America was never a Christian nation. Believe it or not, but this is progress on all fronts from previous years.
- The belief that God has granted America a special role in history is finally no longer the majority belief, and in fact has decline across
all demographics since 2016. 15% of religiously unaffiliated people still believe this, to which I say: What's wrong with you?
- The belief that America sets a good moral example has completely collapsed. 40% as recently as 2018, 26% now. Looks like
someone went and took the blackpill, not that this stops them still believing God has given America a special role in persecuting the sinners, apparently. The most blackpilled among equals is, of course, religiously unaffiliated at 10% agreement.
- The split on whether religion is good or bad is still at 40/60 in favor of it being good, which again is rather strange given the other results. 69% of religiously unaffiliated believe that religion is bad. Nice.
- Believing that you have to believe in God to be moral has declined from an even split to 40/60 in favor of it being unnecessary. Unbelievably, black Protestants actually manage to out-terrible the white evangelical Protestants on this one, at 69% to 64%. Not nice.
- Half of men and a third of women think that American society has become "too feminized". That's gonna be an ultra-yikes from me. Be gone, incel!
- 66% of Americans favor the popular vote over the electoral college. It is of course the Republicans who disagree with this, you didn't need me to tell you that. The weird one is that it's 72% among women and 59% among men. That's a pretty huge gap for a not-a-fucking-gender-issue, but I guess that's America.
Trumpworld- I'm going to skip most of the Trump approval, but scarily a third of Hispanic voters say they support him. Again: What's wrong with you? And don't say it's religion, because the Hispanic Catholic group has less approval.
- Hilariously, the poll on if Trump could lose or gain your support is broken because some of the subgroups aren't large enough to be statistically significant. On the side of supporting Trump, these are: Democrats, Black Protestants, and Hispanic Catholics. On the side of opposing Trump, these are: Republicans and White Evangelical Protestants.
- 98% of Fox News Republicans approve of Trump's handling of the economy. I think that's the highest number in this whole report.
- Seniors actually did turn on Trump over the Rona - 61% disapprove of how he handled it.
- Even 27% of Fox News Republicans think that Trump should behave to a more Presidential standard. Every other group thinks to some degree or another that he should act more Presidential, that he damaged the dignity of the office, and that he has encouraged racist groups. Most glorious among these is, of course, religiously unaffiliated.
- More people still say they wish Bernie had been the nominee than Biden. Get fucked, DNC.
- The Democratic Party is almost evenly split between Bernie/Warren ("Progressive") and Biden/Everyone Else ("Moderate") supporters. Something something socialism, you all know what I'm about.
- Biden is ahead of Trump on all the personality metrics. Fox News Republicans actually think Biden won't concede if he loses the election, which is probably the most divorced thing from reality possible. I'm continuously surprised Biden hasn't conceded the election already. Everyone else reports that they're terrified of a Trump coup, of course. Also, about 50% of Democrats think that the Congressional Republicans will force Trump to leave if he loses. I take it back,
that is the most divorced thing from reality possible.
- One in five Americans know someone who has died of the Rona, one in three know someone who has been hospitalized.
- Statistically 0% of Fox News Republicans say they'll trust Biden to keep them informed about the pandemic. You won't be surprised to learn that they distrust everybody else too. They don't even trust Trump that much, only 58% which is by and away the highest.
- 50% of Americans think that covid was developed in a lab. Can't wait to be stuck with this shit for the next century. It's high among Republicans, but it's also high among Hispanic Protestants at 75% and Black Protestants at 61%.
Fiscally Conservative, Socially Trump- The Democrats have improved dramatically on police racism. In 2015 43% of white Democrats said it was only isolated incidents, now it's 15%. White independents have also fallen, from 65% to 46%. You know what the results from white Republicans were.
- Everyone thinks that protest is good unless it's black people doing it, except for the Democrats who admirably did respond the exact same amount to both questions, at 71% good. Only 10% of Fox News Democrats think that black people protesting is good, but 50% approve of protesting in general.
- 58% of Americans say they favor BLM's goals.
- Approval of Confederate flags remains a coinflip, approval of Confederate statues is 40/60 in favor of them.
- Republicans think most bigotry is towards white people and Christians, everyone else thinks it's towards black and hispanic people. Boring. Asian people are kind of getting shafted by both sides though.
- 50% of Democrats approve of reparations now, which is easily the highest it's ever been. Everyone else disapproves, while Fox News Republicans dissolve into a pool of their own acids at being asked the question.
- Even Republicans will say that immigrants are hard working and have family values, but 72% of Republicans say immigrants are also welfare parasites, 63% say they increase crime, and 40% say they bring disease(!?). Some conflicted feelings on this one...
- Surprisingly, though a majority of Republicans believe in the Great Replacement conspiracy, it's actually down a few points from 2016 even among Fox News Republicans. For whom it is still over 60%, so don't get relaxed yet.
- Again, even a slim majority of Republicans are against the family separation policy (but not Fox News Republicans). Overwhelming opposition from everyone else.
- Majorities of everyone except Republicans support Medicare For All and College For All. A slim majority of Republicans and also everyone supports UBI. 71% of Republicans support a childcare program and it's otherwise in the 80s and 90s. As such, none of these policies will be enacted by the Biden Administration in order to #HealTheDivide
- 42% of Americans think climate change won't harm them. They're Republicans. Death cult, etc.
- Abortion is 60/40 in favor of it being mostly or always available. Surprisingly, as much as Republicans harp on about "how much the Democrats could gain if they would
just give up the baby murder", only about a fifth of the electorate say abortion is an overriding electoral concern. Guess which fifth that is. Go on, guess. In keeping with previous polls the Republicans are kind of fucked on this in a popular rule sense, as even among themselves only a minority want an actual abortion ban and the young Republicans are evenly split on opposing abortion at all. Good thing our wise justices will make such trivialities as voting irrelevant on this.
- The Big Gay shall not be denied. Same-sex marriage is 70/30 in favor. Surprisingly, a comprehensive nondiscrimination law for LGBT people is even more popular, with no group having majority opposition. Not even white evangelical Protestants, barely. Ironically godlike religiously unaffiliated supports same-sex marriage at 90% and a nondiscrimination law at 92%.
- Everybody dislikes China and Russia, but not too much.