The seventh day of Christmas

My last post talked about the declining optimism about the future of today's youth among Republicans during Obama's time in office.  I was looking at the last survey for which individual-level data were available (December 2012) to see if I could find anything that shed light on it.  That survey had a number of questions about expectations for the next year, some of which go back a long way.  One of them was whether you thought the coming year would be "a year when America will increase its power in the world, a year when American power will decline."  Ultimately, it would be interesting to look at a breakdown by party, but here are the overall numbers:

Expectations in 2012 (ie expectations of 2013) were almost the most pessimistic ever, trailing only 1973.  Expectations in 2017 (ie expectations of 2018) were more optimistic, but still evenly split (49% to 49%).   As far as you can tell given the missing years, we seem to be in the most sustained low since the data began.   I was surprised to see that expectations bounced back strongly in the late 1970s--in 1979, 58% expected American influence to grow in 1980, only 30% to decline.  

[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]

The sixth day of Christmas

Last April, I had a post about a question on the chance that "today's youth will have a better life than their parents."  At that time, the last time the question had been asked was June 2016 and the last time for which a breakdown by party was available was December 2012, and I wanted to see if there were any updates.  I found that it was asked again in March 2018, and that the Gallup Poll gives breakdowns by party for all surveys since 2008.    Here is a graph of the percent saying very or somewhat likely from 2008-18:

Republican (red) opinions became more optimistic between 2016 and 2018, and Democratic (blue) opinions became more pessimistic, but the change among Republicans was more than twice as big as the change among Democrats (+29 vs. -13).  In fact, opinions among Democrats didn't change much over the whole period, but opinions among Republicans did.  And as I noted in last year's post, opinions among Republicans kept getting more pessimistic after economic conditions started improving--they were more negative in June 2016 (4.9% unemployment) than they had been in January 2010 (9.8% unemployment). 

Adding the earlier years for which I can get breakdowns by party:

Up through 2008, the biggest gap between  the views of Democrats and Republicans was 12 points.  Under Obama, it grew to 23 points in 2011, then 30 in 2012 and 2013, and 27 in 2016.  Why did opinions diverge so much in those years?  It seems clear that the answer must involve Republicans, since they are the ones whose opinions changed the most.  I think it has to do with the nature of the criticism of Obama from Republican opinion leaders--not just the usual claims that Democratic policies would cost a lot and be ineffective, but that they were part of something larger and more sinister and that we were running out of time to stop it. 

I think this sheds light on why Donald Trump was able to easily defeat what people had thought was a strong field of Republican candidates.  All kinds of prominent Republicans had been saying that the policies of the Obama administration were going to destroy America and had to be stopped.  So Republican voters went for someone who seemed like he was ready to do whatever it took, rather than for people who'd said something had to be done and then been unable to do it. 

The fifth day of Christmas

"In general, do you think the criminal justice system in the United States is biased in favor of blacks, or is it biased against blacks, or does it generally give blacks fair treatment?"

                Favor   Against   Fair
July 1994        6%    25%       56%
June 1995        5%    32%       53%
Sept 1995       10%    38%       41%
Oct  1995        6%    33%       52%
Feb  2000        2%    43%       43%
Jan  2007        2%    37%       49%
Aug  2013        5%    35%       43%

July 2015        5%    49%       40%

Sept 2017        8%    47%       36%

[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]

The fourth day of Christmas

IN YOUR OPINION, HOW WELL DO YOU THINK NEGROES ("blacks" starting in 1978) ARE TREATED IN THIS COMMUNITY--THE SAME AS WHITES ARE, NOT VERY WELL, OR BADLY?

                               

                         Same       Not well       Badly

July 1963            61%         23%            3%

Feb 1964             52%         24%           5%

Apr 1965             65%         18%           2%

June 1967            73%         18%           2%

July 1967             72%         15%           2%

May 1968            70%         17%           3%

July 1978             65%         18%           4%

May 1980            65%          19%          4%

Dec 1980             63%          20%          5%

Jan 1987              61%          24%          4%

June 1990            63%          20%          3%

Jan 1997              72%          18%          3%

Sept 1999            69%          23%          3%

March 2001         64%          24%          3%

Feb 2018              53%         38%          8%

Not much change until the one in 2018.  That had a different kind of sample: "interviews were conducted among participants in AmeriSpeak, a probability-based panel designed to be representative of the national US adult population."  Hopefully there are some questions on which the AmeriSpeak panel can be compared to conventional surveys, because if it's real, the 2001 to 2018 change seems important.  By the way, the question was asked of both blacks and whites.  Black responses were broken out in a couple of cases, and were about 40% "same as whites", 40% "not very well," and 10%-15% "badly."

[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research

The third day of Christmas

"Do you think that global warming will pose a threat to you or your way of life in your lifetime?"

                       Yes             No
Nov 1997       25%           69%

Mar 2001       31%           66%

Mar 2002       33%           65%

Jun  2005       33%           66%

Mar 2006       35%           62%

Mar 2008       40%           58%

Mar 2009       38%           60%

Mar 2010       32%           67%

Mar 2012       38%           61%

Mar 2013       34%           64%

Mar 2014       36%           64%

Mar 2015       37%           62%

Mar 2016       41%           57%

Mar 2017       42%           57%

Mar 2018       45%           54%

or as a figure:

[data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]

The second day of Christmas

"Do you think most companies try to pay higher wages as they prosper, or do you think they have to be forced to pay higher wages?}

                             Try to pay              Forced
April 1948             36%                          55%
Jan 1951                36%                          55%
Jan 1953                36%                          54%
Nov 1953              38%                          52%
Jan 1955                38%                         50%
Nov 1958              31%                          56%
Feb 1960               37%                          45%
Dec 1961              36%                          47%
Feb 1964              36%                           52%

Nov 1965             36%                           52%

[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]

The first day of Christmas

I have a number of ideas for posts or bits of information that seem worth preserving, so I'm going to post one a day.  I'm not sure if there are enough for all twelve days of Christmas, but I should get through at least six or so.  Some of them will just be data with little or no comment, but I'll do a longer one for the first day.

A number of people have said that religion and politics are substitutes--when people lose faith in religion, they turn to politics for a sense of meaning.  More specifically, they turn to extremist politics.  I was reminded of that this morning when David Brooks gave his list of the best essays of the year, which included one by Andrew Sullivan that appeared a few weeks ago.  He says that religious faith is declining in America, and as a result:

". . . what happens is illiberal politics. The need for meaning hasn’t gone away, but without Christianity, this yearning looks to politics for satisfaction. And religious impulses, once anchored in and tamed by Christianity, find expression in various political cults. . . like almost all new cultish impulses, they demand a total and immediate commitment to save the world."

"Now look at our politics. We have the cult of Trump on the right, a demigod who, among his worshippers, can do no wrong. And we have the cult of social justice on the left . . . . They are filling the void that Christianity once owned, without any of the wisdom and culture and restraint that Christianity once provided."

The logic of the idea that a decline of religious faith leads to an increase in political fanaticism doesn't seem convincing to me.  But I'll focus on something where you can get data--does Trump have an unusually enthusiastic "base"?  Since the early 1950s, the Gallup Poll has asked people to rate various people and things on a scale of -5 to 5 (with no zero).  The question initially talked about "like very much" and "dislike very much," but during the 1980s and 1990s switched to "very favorable opinion" and "very unfavorable opinion."  (I didn't compare systematically, but it didn't seem like the change in question wording affected ratings).   They have asked it about the major party presidential candidates shortly before every election starting in 1956, except 1996 and 2000.  In 2016, Donald Trump set a record for the largest number of unfavorable ratings, and Hillary Clinton also broke the previous record, which was held by Barry Goldwater in 1964.  The figure shows the percent favorable minus unfavorable ratings.  There was a downward trend from 1956 to 2012, and then a substantial drop in 2016.

But what about the intensity of Trump's support?  11 percent gave him a plus five.  That was the same as Hillary Clinton, and worse than Mitt Romney in 2012 (15%).  In fact, it was the lowest ever except for Goldwater (10%).  Maybe Trump has a larger core of truly fanatical supporters than previous candidates, but they are not a large share of the people who voted for him.

There is also a change that doesn't show up in the figures above, which can be seen by considering the 2008 election.  Barack Obama had 62% favorable and 35% unfavorable, just about the same as Ronald Reagan in 1980.  Obama had more +5 ratings than Reagan (23% to 14%) but also more -5 (18% to 13%).   McCain had 12 percent +5 and 16% -5, which were exactly the same as what George McGovern got in 1972, even though McGovern was considerably worse in terms of the overall balance of positive and negative ratings. 

The point is that the number of +5 ratings has been declining and the number of -5 ratings has been increasing even more than you would expect from the balance of positives and negatives.  Obama's 23% of +5 ratings was the highest since Reagan in 1984--but well below what most candidates got into the 1970s--even Adlai Stevenson got a +5 rating from 23%.  And in 2012, 20% gave Obama a -5, almost equal to Barry Goldwater in 1964 (21%). 

So what is rising is not enthusiastic support for one's own side, but strong dislike or fear of the other side. 


[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]