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]

Why is there no populism in the United States?

There have been a lot of stories saying that the "yellow vest" movement, Brexit, and the election of Donald Trump are all examples of populism.  For example, Ross Douthat says "the populists theoretically hold the White House, under a president who promised to be a traitor to his class. . . [but] his administration’s policy agenda has been steered by the Republican Party’s business elite rather than by the voters who elected him."  Actually, the voters who elected Trump were pretty much the same people who voted for Mitt Romney, and they got the policies that they presumably wanted--tax cuts and less regulation of business.   I've had several posts pointing out that people didn't see Trump as different from other Republicans in terms of caring about the middle class or "people like you," but here is one more:

Who do you think would do more to advance the interests of ......

Wealthy
                                                 2012                    2016
D                                                24%                    25%
R                                                65%                    65%
Both/Neither, DK                      11%                     10%


Middle Class

D                                                51%                    50%
R                                                42%                    40%
Both/Neither, DK                        7%                     11%

Working Class

D                                                                            51%
R                                                                            41%
Both/Neither, DK                                                     8%

That is, in class terms people saw the Clinton/Trump choice as just like the Obama/Romney choice:  by a large margin, they thought that the Republican candidate would do more for wealthy people, and by a smaller margin they thought the Democrat would do more for the middle class (they didn't ask about the working class in 2012, but Clinton had the edge in advancing the interests of the working class in 2016).  Trump did better among less educated voters than Romney had, but there is no sign that it's because they expected him to pay particular attention to the working and middle classes. 

In most European nations, there is a strong consensus among political elites--left of center on social issues right of center on economics, and in favor of the European Union (including the "ever-closer union" goal).  More exactly, the economic consensus involves concern about budget deficits, reducing labor market regulation, and limiting the growth of "entitlements."  These principles get support from the mainstream parties of both the left and the right, but they are not all that popular with the public.  Populist movements arise in opposition to this consensus, but they suffer from a lack of capable leadership, so they haven't been effective. 

In the United States, there is not a consensus among political elites:  it makes a difference which party wins.  As a result, you don't get populist movements of general opposition to the elite--political energy is channeled into partisan conflict.   This is related to my previous post, which was about the tax-limitation movement of the 1970s.   At that time, there was more of an elite consensus--this was the time of Daniel Patrick Moynihan's "professionalization of reform."  Some of the reforms were popular (like environmental protection) but some weren't (the stronger forms of affirmative action), and the increase in taxes needed to pay for new programs definitely wasn't.   The result was movements like Proposition 13 and the anti-busing movement.  The Republicans absorbed their influence and shifted to the right, so the ideological gap between the parties increased.  So the underlying difference is that American parties have been more open to "permeation" than European ones have been. 

Ironically, in one sense the results have been similar.  European political elites have lost support because they have resisted the influence of popular opinion.  American political elites have lost support because of political conflict. 

PS:  Fareed Zakaria had a column today in which he offered what he regarded as reasons for optimism about developments in Europe.  I would summarize it by saying he thinks that European political elites have ignored popular opinion in the past and will be able to do it again.  A few quotes:  "[Macron] has a five-year term, his party controls the legislature, and most analysts agree that his reforms are inevitable if France is to compete for investment and generate growth. . . . In Italy, the new coalition government had introduced a populist budget that promised a universal basic income and early retirement, only to meet the steely opposition of the E.U. And it was the populists who blinked. . . [in Britain] the basic story is that every time the country comes close to actual Brexit, it pulls back, appalled by the costs."


[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]

Fifty million Frenchmen

Fareed Zakaria has a column on the "yellow vest" protests in France.  He suggests that they involve two divisions:  the left and right against the center, and rural areas versus cities.  He links to a report from the French survey firm IFOP which finds that "nearly 90 percent of people who back the major far-left and far-right parties view the movement favorably, compared with only 23 percent of people in President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party."   That's true, but he doesn't mention that 76% of people who identify with the traditional mainstream left party, the Socialists, and 72% of people who identify with the traditional mainstream conservative party, the Republicans, have favorable views.  72% of the people who don't identify with any party also have favorable views.   Macron's party was founded in 2016 as a vehicle for his Presidential bid, so supporters of his party are essentially equivalent to people who support him, and they aren't very numerous now.  It's not surprising that they don't have favorable views of the movement, and when you set them aside the striking thing support is uniformly high.  The IFOP report also distinguishes between the Paris metropolitan area, urban areas in the provinces, and rural areas:  the percentages with favorable views are 66, 71, and 78.   Although support is higher in rural areas, I would not call that a big difference.  It also gives a breakdown by occupation:  at least 65% of every occupational group has favorable views, except for professionals and managers, who are at 57%. 

So there doesn't appear to be a "fissure between relatively better-educated urbanites and less-educated rural populations."  The differences among groups are not that large, and support is high among all parts of the population.   Rather than Trump or Brexit, a better parallel might be the movement for tax limitation (Proposition 13) in California 40 years ago.  That cut taxes without specifying spending cuts, and most of its supporters didn't seem to think that it would result in reductions in government services--the idea was that the government would find the money somewhere or be forced to be more efficient (see this post, and Sears and Citrin, Tax Revolt:  Something for Nothing in California for more detailed discussion).  Business, labor, and leading politicians of both parties opposed it as unrealistic and irresponsible, but it won with over 60% of the vote).  According to Sears and Citrin, the victory was broadly based--it won among almost all major population groups. 

Partisanship and perception

In early 2017, I had a post on perceptions of economic conditions, which noted that they were related to party identification--if your party was in office, your assessment was more positive--and that this relation seemed to be getting stronger.  I suggested that this put a floor under the ratings, and pointed out that they were never as bad during the 2008-9 recession as they were in the late 1970s or early 1990s.  I went on to say that partisanship should also work the other way:  "ratings will never get all that favorable, because supporters of the other party would be slow to acknowledge that the economy was doing well.  However, in order to test that, we'd need to have a real economic boom, which hasn't happened in this century and is unlikely to happen in the near future."  The question I was discussing involved perceived change in economic conditions, and in that sense there hasn't been a boom--economic growth is good by recent standards, but not that unusual by historical standards. 

However, the Gallup Poll has asked a question which goes back to 1992--"How would you rate economic conditions in this country today -- as excellent, good, only fair or poor?"--and the unemployment rate at the lowest level it's ever been in that whole time.   In principle, I think that this question is easier to interpret than the one about change, because it simply asks about current conditions, and doesn't require people to compare with what they remember about the past.  I had jut used the change question because it goes back farther.  If we look at the average rating of current conditions (excellent=4, good=3, fair=2, poor=1): 

Even though the unemployment rate is lower than it was in the late 1990s, average ratings are less favorable than they were then.  They are also more polarized--more "excellent" ratings and more "poor."  Both of these are what would be expected from a bigger partisan split--people are less likely to accept that the economy is good if the "wrong" party is in power.  Also, although I've said this before, it's worth saying again:  perceptions were not especially negative at the time of the 2016 election.  The vertical lines indicate elections, and the 2016 rating was about what it was in 2004, and only a little lower than 1996.  It was considerably higher than in 2008 (no surprise), but also than in 1992. 

A natural follow-up question is whether the partisanship effect is about the same for both parties, or is stronger for one than the other.  The breakdowns aren't available for all of the surveys (or at least I haven't seen them) but I may investigate sometime in the future. 

Is this what you want in a President?

I have proposed that the style of the candidates was an important factor in the 2016 elections, especially in creating a large split by education.   By "the candidates," I mean especially Donald Trump, since Hillary Clinton was pretty conventional, but Trump was very different from any previous major-party nominee.  My idea was that education might influence people's ideas about what qualities were desirable or undesirable in a leader .  I had looked for questions on this topic without much success, but recently found a survey from March 2008.  This asked people to choose between alternatives, for example:  "would you prefer a president who makes decisions and then sticks with them no matter what, or a president who reconsiders decisions after making them when circumstances change?"  There was a substantial difference by education:  28% of people with high school or less and only 8% of college graduate said they preferred someone who stuck with decisions no matter what.  They also asked about someone "who gets involved in many of the details of most issues, or a president who sets broad policies and then delegates to others the implementation of these policies?"  Again, there was a substantial educational difference:  25% of people with high school or less and 52% of college graduate preferred someone who delegates.  There was also one about a choice between someone "who spends a lot of time thinking things through and deliberating before making decisions, or a president who makes decisions more quickly based on his or her gut instincts?"  There was an overwhelming preference for someone who thinks things through at all educational levels, but people with college education were a bit stronger in that direction. 

There was another question that turned out to be very relevant to the 2016 election "Which do you personally find more offensive--when people make negative comments about women in general, or when people make negative comments about African Americans in general, or don't remarks like that offend you? "  29% of people with high school or less and only 10% of college graduates said that they weren't offended by those comments.  So it seems that there is a substantial difference between what more and less educated people want in a leader, and that the Trump style was more appealing to less educated people. 

The survey also contained another question which wasn't relevant to what I was looking for, but was interesting "All other things being equal, would you rather vote for a man, rather vote for a woman, or wouldn't a candidate's gender make a difference to you?"  3% said they would rather vote for a woman, and 17% said they'd rather vote for a man.  Education made some difference, but even among college graduates 13% said they'd rather vote for a man and only 4% that they would rather vote for a woman.  Gender also made some difference, but among women it was still 16% for a man to 5% for a woman.  Age made a bigger difference, and so did region:  22% of people in the South and 8% of people in the Northeast said they would rather vote for a man.  Self-rated ideology made a big difference--conservatives said they would rather vote for a man by 30%-2%, liberals by 9%-6%. 

[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]