228 Chapter 6Chapter 6 || Public OpinionPublic OpinionUnpacking the Conflict
Considering all that we’ve discussed in this chapter, let’s apply what we know about
how public opinion works to the examples from the beginning of the chapter. Do
Americans really hold the bizarre beliefs that are sometimes expressed in polling
results? Can we take polls seriously, if they produce results like these?
Given how people form opinions, it’s easy to see what Jon Stewart was talking
about: at least some of the time, public opinion will be incomplete at best and wildly
inaccurate at worst. But that’s not surprising. For most people, politics is not the most
important thing in their lives, and they don’t spend much time worrying about it,
learning the details, or forming judgments until they need to.
When we ask how “good” opinions are, or whether the electorate acts “rationally
and responsibly,” as V. O. Key argued, the most important thing to remember is
that there is no absolute standard of accuracy. One of the fundamental tenets
of a democracy is that people are free to hold whatever opinions they want, and
to base these opinions on whatever factors they want to consider. If someone
says she approves of Trump’s performance in office, and we determine that her
judgment is based on Trump’s being a Republican, this opinion is as legitimate
as that of someone whose evaluation is based on a detailed study of multiple
factors. Moreover, making sense of politics requires people to make some pretty
sophisticated judgments, and it would be no surprise to find that they make mistakes
some of the time, particularly given the shortcuts they use to form their opinions.
Nevertheless, the model of opinion formation described in this chapter provides
observers of American politics with a guide for interpreting public opinion, including
how opinions will change given events.
Should we take polls seriously? Yes, but not too much. Given all the potential
problems with mass surveys, we should be suspicious about surprising results
such as the support for conspiracy theories cited at the beginning of this chapter.
Respondents may have not taken the question seriously, they may have focused on
subtle details of the question—or their reply may have been driven by considerations
that have nothing to do with the question at hand. Republican suspicions about
Barack Obama’s citizenship probably reflected the fact that their party’s presidential
candidate, Donald Trump, had repeatedly voiced his suspicions during the campaign.
And Democratic concerns about the government’s foreknowledge of the September
11 attacks were colored by the identity of the president at the time, Republican
George W. Bush. More generally, we should take poll results seriously to the extent
that they are based on multiple surveys, with differently worded questions; are
conducted by reputable pollsters; and are conducted at a time when respondents
are aware of the issues they are being asked about. One poll on its own doesn’t tell us
very much.
In sum, while you can’t take every poll result you see at face value, public opinion
is real, and it matters. Americans have ideas about what they want government
to do, and they use these ideas to guide their political choices. Polls showing deep
disagreement between Americans on some issues describe the policy landscape on
which elections will be contested and the subsequent debates in Washington. While
very few Americans are policy experts, their views on policy are the ultimate driver of
our government’s policy choices.What’s
Your
Take?
Is public opinion important
enough that politicians
should follow it? Or is public
opinion too unreliable and
unpredictable to trust? And
if public opinion cannot
be trusted, whose wishes
should government follow, if
not the people’s?Full_07_APT_64431_ch06_198-231.indd 228 16/11/18 1:39 PM