William_T._Bianco,_David_T._Canon]_American_Polit

220 Chapter 6Chapter 6 || Public OpinionPublic Opinion

The timing of surveys may also affect how useful the results are. Surveys taken

immediately after an event—for example, a survey on gun control taken immediately after

a school shooting—are generally not good guides to public opinion. The problem is not that

people are being insincere or thoughtless. Rather, it is that respondents’ opinions are colored

by the recent tragedy—but only in the short term. Over the next days, weeks, or months,

opinions are likely to return to what they were before the event. Thus, polls taken in the wake

of a powerful event may not be a good guide to what people might demand from government

in light of what has happened, nor may they reflect how people might react a year later

given government inaction. The same is true of polls taken well in advance of the time

when the public actually has to act on their preferences—for example, a poll about the 2020

presidential election taken two years before the election, when most people know almost

nothing about the candidates and have not even begun to think about their choice. Under

these conditions, poll results tell us almost nothing about what people will ultimately do.

“Why

Should

I Care?”

New technologies have made surveys cheaper and easier, allowing groups to poll

more often and ask a much wider range of questions. However, polls are not infallible.

Believing in survey results without some skepticism can lead to fundamental

misunderstandings of public opinion, like the polls’ failure to predict the outcome of the

2016 presidential elections.

What Americans Think about Politics

In this section, we describe American public opinion, including people’s ideological

beliefs and what they think of the federal government. These opinions drive overall

support for government action and serve as the basis for opinions on more specific

policy questions. To understand what America’s national government does and why,

we have to determine what Americans ask of it.

Ideological Polarization

We begin by examining liberal and conservative ideology and party identification to see

whether historical data show evidence of ideological polarization: sharp differences in

Americans’ overall ideas of the size and scope of government. Many commentators argue

that government’s inaction on issues like gun control or immigration reform, as well as

continued conflict over issues like Obamacare, reflects increased polarization among the

American public. The What Do the Facts Say? feature shows two kinds of survey data that

can help us evaluate levels of polarization: responses to a question measuring ideology

(liberal-moderate-conservative) and a question that taps a respondent’s party identification

(Republican-Independent-Democrat). The ideological data show no evidence of increased

polarization; in the case of partisanship, a substantial percentage of Americans in 2016

described themselves as independents. (For more details on partisanship, see Chapter 8.)

Looking more closely at opinion polarization, the third part of the What Do the Facts

Say? feature divides the electorate into nine groups based on answers to questions that tap

PRESENT FINDINGS ON WHAT

AMERICANS THINK ABOUT

GOVERNMENT AND WHY IT

M AT T E R S

ideological polarization

Sharp differences in Americans’

overall ideas of the size and scope of

government.

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