"When will I get credit....? When will people understand.....? When will Polls reflect the Greatness of America...?"

 During the Biden administration, popular perception of economic conditions was very negative, even though actual conditions weren't bad according to the standard statistics.  Now the Trump administration faces the same problem (my title is a quote from a Trump post on Truth Social).  The Michigan Consumer Surveys report an "Index of Consumer Sentiment" every month, and in the last 20 years or so they have also recorded party identification.  The figure shows the ICS average for supporters of the President's party and the opposition party (omitting the transitional months when party control changes, e. g. Nov 2024-Jan 2025).  

The ups and downs follow a similar pattern, but opposition party perceptions have a downward trend.  The low point for supporters of the president's party was February 2009, when the country was in a severe recession.  For supporters of the opposition party, perceptions have been below the February 2009 levels for most of the past three years.  So to some extent, the negative perceptions just reflect the growth of negative partisanship--supporters of the other party seeing things as very bad rather than pretty bad.  But even today, a lot of people (30%-40%) are not partisans.*  What do they think?  The next figure compares independents' ICS to the average of Democratic and Republican values.

 

The diagonal line means equal values for independents and the average of Democrats and Republicans.  Most points are below the line, meaning that independents are more negative than partisans, presumably because they tend to have more negative views of politics and politicians.  The red dots are the months in the second Trump term:  they tend to be farther below the line, meaning that the gap between independent and partisan perceptions has been consistently larger than average.  The next figure shows changes in the gap over time:

It seemed to bounce around without much pattern until sometime around the middle of 2022--since then, independents have steadily become more negative relative to partisans.  Why?  When economic conditions are ambiguous, independents may be influenced by general impressions about whether the president is paying attention to the economy.  In the last couple of years of his administration, it seemed like Biden was more focused on foreign affairs, and during his second administration the economy hasn't been prominent among Trump's concerns.  There were two earlier months when independent perceptions were unusually negative--April and May 2012.  I don't remember exactly what was in the news then, but I do recall that during the Obama administration there were sometimes complaints that he wasn't focusing on the economy.  Going farther back, in 1992 economic perceptions were more negative than economic statistics suggested they should be.  My hypothesis suggests that tendency should have been particularly strong among independents:  George HW Bush was generally seen as being more interested in foreign affairs than in economics.   

*It drops to about 10%-15% if you ask whether people "lean" towards one party, but the Michigan surveys don't do that.  

It's the same old song

 I recently got an e-mail urging me to contribute a paper to the International Journal of Arts, Humanities & Social Science (IJAHSS).  That name rang a bell--last year I discovered that I was listed as the editor of the EON International Journal of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences.  Was the similarity in names just a coincidence?  I looked at the website for the IJAHSS and it looked a lot like what I remembered of the EIJAHSS--the major change is that there publication fee is up to $300 (previously $200).   They list an "Advisory Board" and an "Editorial Board" and I was relieved to find that I'm not included on either one.  The editor-in-chief is given as Val Dusek, of the Department of Philosophy at the University of New Hampshire.  I did a search for him and discovered that he died in May of this year.  I recognized one of the names on the editorial board, Ted Jelen of the University of Nevada Las Vegas.  A search revealed that he died in November 2017, several years before the journal started.  I haven't searched for any of the other people listed as members, but I wonder if there's a strategy there--dead people aren't going to find out and object to the misuse of their names.  

For they/them

 For many people, attachment to a party isn't primarily a matter agreement on specific issues, but a general sense that it's concerned with people like you or that you care about.  From time to time, Gallup has asked "which political party--the Republican or Democratic--do you think serves the interests of the following groups the best."  The most recent was in August 2024, when they asked about wealthy people, business and professional people, military veterans, small business people, retired people, recent immigrants who came to the US legally/recent immigrants who came to the US illegally [random half samples], parents of children under 18, black people, poor people, Hispanic people, women, labor union members and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.  The figure shows breaks opinions down by party.  The horizonal axis shows the percent of Republicans who think that the Republican party best serves the interests of each group:  for example, 57% of Republicans think that the Republicans are best for union members.  The vertical axis gives the percent of Democrats who think that the Democratic party best serves the group:  for example, 88% of Democrats think that the Democrats are best for union members.*

Over 90% of Democrats think that their party is best for LGBT people, women, legal immigrants, Hispanics, retired people, parents, black people, and poor people.  80-90% think that their party is best for small business, veterans, illegal immigrants, and union members.  Then there are two groups that trail:  business and professionals at 56% and wealthy people at 9%.  Among Republicans, only 19% say that their party is best for LGBT people and illegal immigrants; majorities think that the Republicans are best for all other groups, although they're generally not as strong as the majorities among Democrats.  

Eight of these groups were also included in a survey in 1990.  The next two figures show changes in Democratic and Republican perceptions between 1990 and 2024:

The diagonal lines indicate equal values in 1990 and 2024.  Points above the line mean that a higher percentage of partisans saw their party as better for the group in 2024 than in 1990.  For both Democrats and Republicans, seven of the eight are above the line.  This could be interpreted as a general increase in polarization:  strong partisans are more likely to see their party as better for (almost) everyone.  Another potential factor is feelings about the groups:  partisans will want to claim groups that they like and connect the other party to groups that they dislike.  For both Democrats and Republicans, wealthy people are the one exception to the general pattern:  I would interpret this as an example of a general rise of anti-elitist sentiment:  members of both parties are more reluctant to be associated with serving the interests of wealthy people.  A few other cases are notable for large increases between 1990 and 2024:  Republicans became considerably more likely to say that their party was best for black people (33% to 76%) and poor people (39% to 76%).   Again, I would say that this reflects a change in the way that Republicans like to think of themselves.  

*People who say that the parties are equal or who don't know are counted with those who say the other party is better.  

American wokeness

 A few years ago, I compiled information from a number of surveys and concluded that perceived discrimination against blacks increased sharply around 2015.   I recently ran across a question that I hadn't noticed then, which I'll use to check and update those conclusions.  The question is "In general, do you think blacks have as good a chance as white people in your community to get any kind of job for which they are qualified, or don't you think they have as good a chance?"  It was first asked in 1963, then again in 1978, then in 1989 and pretty frequently since then.*  The figure shows the percent who said they did have as good a chance minus the percent who said they didn't.

It increased between 1963 and 1978, then stayed about the same for several decades.  Agreement was higher in two surveys from January and October 2009, which probably reflected general optimism associated with Barack Obama's election as president.  In February 2015, 72% thought black people had an equal chance and 28% that they didn't.  The next time the question was asked was in July 2016:  64% said they did and 36% that they didn't.  In July 2020, it was 58% and 42%.  In July 2021, it was 55% and 44%.  People often say that there was a period of "peak woke" for a year or two after the murder of George Floyd, but that it's receded as maybe even been replaced by a backlash.  However, when the question was asked in June 2025, the results were almost the same as in 2020 and 2021 (55%-42%).  

In my earlier post, I suggested that the change in opinion was the result of media coverage and viral videos about police misconduct and the mistreatment of black people in everyday life.  But why did they find such a large and receptive audience?  In a book published in 1981, Samuel Huntington proposed that American politics was marked by periods of "creedal passion"--when substantial groups of people became upset about the gap between widely held values (the "American creed") and actual social conditions.  Of course, the "American creed" is hard to define, but I would say that a belief in social mobility for both individual and groups is a major part of it.  Americans accept a lot of inequality, but don't like anything that resembles a caste system, with hereditary groups at the top and bottom.  After the civil rights laws of the 1960s, the general view was that in a generation or two, the class distributions of blacks would be similar to that of whites.  But although there was some decline in racial inequality, it was slow--that is, there was increasing tension between the ideal of a mobile society and the reality of enduring inequality.    And if racial inequality is the result of discrimination, then it's clear what can and should be done to reduce it.  As a result,  people were attracted to that explanation:  the alternative was that we might just have to live with it for a long time, maybe forever.

That leads to the question of why the change in views on race hasn't led to substantial reforms--if anything, public policy has shifted away from trying to reduce racial inequality.  I'd say it was a lack of political leadership.  In its absence, the desire to do something led to actions that were unhelpful or sometimes counterproductive (e. g., dropping standardized tests in university admissions).  

*It referred to "negroes" the first time it was asked.  I also include a few that asked:  "Do you think that blacks who live in your community do or do not...have as good a chance as whites to get a job for which they're qualified?"

Inside and outside

 A couple of weeks ago, I had a post on declining public confidence in universities.  Most people who've written on this topic say that the cause is internal--something universities have done or failed to do-- and that they need to reform in order to win back support.   I suggested that the major cause was external:  that leading Republicans had become more critical of universities, and the public (especially Republicans) followed.  In this post, I'll elaborate on that point, focusing on one frequently mentioned factor:  political bias.  Megan McArdle writes "in the wider world, asking whether academia really skews left makes you look like an idiot or, slightly more charitably, like someone so encased in a bubble that they don’t even know what they’re missing."   In 2021, an Axios/Ipsos survey asked if you agreed or disagreed with the statements "colleges and universities are biased in favor of liberal ideas and beliefs" and "colleges and universities are biased in favor of conservative ideas and beliefs."  I combined those into five groups:  those who thought they were biased in favor of only liberal beliefs, only conservative beliefs, both liberal and conservative beliefs, not biased, and don't know.*

                                    All            College grads
Liberal only                37%            49%
Conservative only        9%               7%
Both                             9%                6%
Not biased                   14%              17%
Don't know                  32%              21%

Less than half of people believe that there is a liberal bias.  Among the public, 32% think that there is a conservative bias or no bias; among college graduates, it's 30%.  And even among college graduates, a lot of people say they don't know.  So in the "wider world," there isn't a consensus on the topic.  

These results illustrate a more general point.  Although there's a good deal of media coverage of higher education, it's a niche topic--it rarely appears on TV news or in local newspapers.  Also, there are no standard measures that are regularly reported--even someone who follows the issue just gets a collection of individual events. As a result, actual conditions have little influence on public perceptions.  But if a prominent politician speaks out about universities, that is a major story, and people have a sense of how to react:  it depends on how they generally feel about that politician.  So what political leaders say does make a difference.  

*People who said they were biased in favor of one side and didn't know about the other were counted as biased in favor of only that side.  Disagree on one and don't know about the other were counted as not biased, so the "don't know" category means don't know on both questions.

[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]

Aftermath

 A few thoughts in the wake of Tuesday's election:

1.  The basic story: the voters who put Trump over the top in 2024 were expecting something like his first term, which was a pretty standard Republican administration in terms of policy, although not in terms of style.  His second term has been much more radical, and people reacted against that.  

2.  Paul Krugman writes "the 2024 election was mainly about economics", particularly inflation, and that 2025 was too.  This overstates the importance of inflation and understates the importance of immigration in 2024.  I'm not sure about the overall impact of immigration in 2025:  most voters like the reduction in illegal immigration, but regard Trump's methods as too harsh.  But in 2024 the sense that the Biden administration had let things get out of control definitely helped Trump. 

3.  Jamelle Bouie writes "As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump is a phenomenally effective vote-winner, capable of turning out millions of otherwise infrequent voters to deliver the White House and Congress to the Republican Party."  I think this is wrong--his record in the 2016 and 2020 general elections was very poor.  In 2016, he got 45.9% of the vote against Hillary Clinton's 48%, even though Clinton was one of the weakest major-party candidates in a long time.  In 2020 he got 46.8% against Joe Biden's 51.2%--it was only the peculiarities of the Electoral College that made it a close election.  This time, Trump had the advantage of incumbency, which should have been even larger than usual because people tend to rally around leaders in a crisis.  All Trump had to do was act like he was taking Covid seriously, but he couldn't bring himself to do that.  Bouie is right that Trump turned out millions of infrequent voters, but many (or most) turned out in opposition to him.  

This leads to the question of why the party renominated him.  People sometimes say that it was because he was so popular among ordinary Republican voters that he couldn't be stopped.  I don't think that this is it.  The figure shows very favorable ratings (4 or 5 on a -5 to +5 scale of major party presidential candidates since 1952:

31% gave Trump a very favorable rating in 2024, which was better than 2016, but still pretty ordinary--Mitt Romney had 30% in 2012 and George W. Bush had 34% in 2004.  Trump was only a slightly ahead of Harris, who had 29%.*

I think the major reason for Trump's renomination is that leading Republicans didn't put up much resistance.  Why not?  My (tentative) answer it's because being seen as divided is a negative for a party, and it was clear that if Trump lost a battle for the nomination, the party was going to be divided--he wouldn't accept defeat and urge everyone to unite around the nominee.  So their strategy was to hope that once he was out of office, he wouldn't be the center of news news coverage, and that his support would just fade away.  This wasn't unreasonable, since there was no previous experience with a situation like this.  

[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research and Gallup]

*There were two surveys in 2024, one in May and one in October.  Both Democratic and Republican very favorable ratings were higher in October:  29% for Harris vs. 20% for Biden, 31% for Trump in October vs. 25% in May.  My initial version of this post mislabeled May 2024 as 2020.  There was a survey in October 2020, but the report doesn't have a breakdown of the degree of favorability.  

We're going wrong

 Andrew Gelman had a post on "the last time that it seemed that the United States was coming apart, in the late 1960s."  He says that there was there was "the same feeling of things spinning out of control and the idea that conventional politics was failing."  I was going to leave a comment, but it expanded into this post: 

The most important difference is that in the late 1960s there was a lot more confidence in political and institutional leaders.  The Gallup poll sometimes asks people to rate public figures on a scale of +5 to -5.  In October 1968, 79% gave Richard Nixon a positive rating, with 23% giving him a +5, and only 6% giving a -5.   Hubert Humphrey got 72% positive, with 16% giving a +5 and 8 a -5.   In October 2024, 51% gave Donald Trump a positive rating, with 21% at +5 and 35% at -5.  Kamala Harris got 48% positive, with 16% at +5 and 29% at -5.   That is, in 1968 many people thought that both candidates were pretty good, and few people thought that the one they were voting against was terrible; now it's the reverse.  We also have data for confidence in "the people running" various institutions, from the Harris Poll in 1967 and the General Social Survey in 2024.  In 2024, confidence was lower for 12 of the 13 institutions, and about the same for the remaining one (organized labor.

But I think that the sense that things were spinning out of control continued through the 1970s and early 1980s.  Although there were ups and downs, there was a constant background of economic problems ("stagflation"), rising crime and social disorder, and international setbacks.  Confidence in all thirteen institutions fell between 1967 and 1980, although the 1980 levels are higher than today's, with the exception of the military and organized labor.  As far as political leaders:

Both Carter and Reagan got low ratings compared to most previous candidates, but both were favorable on balance:  Carter had 68% positive and Reagan 64%, and both had more +5 than -5 ratings.  Independent candidate John Anderson also had over 60% positive.  

Turning to the general mood, I have to rely on impressions rather than data.  I was born in 1959 and wasn't paying attention to politics and public affairs in the late 1960s, but my sense that most people thought that the country had serious problems, but that its leaders could solve them.  By the late 1970s, there was a feeling that maybe our problems were too big for anyone to solve.  Now there's a feeling that the leaders aren't even trying to solve problems, but are causing them.  

[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]