Postscript on elites and the public

In my last post, I noted that between 1998 and 2014 Democratic elites, Republican elites, and the public all became less likely to say that "protecting weaker nations against foreign aggression," "strengthening the United Nations," "helping to bring a democratic form of government to other nations," and "combating world hunger," should be priorities, and that the move of Democratic elites was larger than that of the other groups.  (I left out one that followed the same course--"promoting and defending human rights in other countries").  But I didn't mention the result:  in 2014, the general public was more likely to say that all of those should be priorities than either Democratic or Republican elites. 

                                                Public     D Elites   R Elites
Protecting the weak                   26%         20%       18%
UN                                             37%         27%         5%
Bring democracy                       17%         12%        13%
World hunger                             42%        40%        15%
Human rights                             33%         32%        13%

All of these are goals that could be described as "humanitarian."  I think this says something important about popular views of foreign policy.  It's often suggested that the contrast is between an "nationalist" public and "internationalist" elites.  There is something to that--the public is more likely to think we should focus on "problems here at home."  But there is also a generous side to public opinion--if there are problems in a foreign country, people often feel that we should do something to help.   So popular "nationalism" isn't equivalent to chauvinism or isolationism.

A couple of other postscripts:
1.  In the column I mentioned in my last post, David Brooks said "a big part of the shift is caused by the fact that many Americans have lost faith in human nature and human possibility. . . . social trust has collapsed over the decades, especially among the young. Distrustful, alienated people don’t want to get involved in the strange, hostile, outside world."  The survey he talks about includes a standard measure of trust also included in the General Social Survey.  The GSS doesn't have many questions related to foreign policy issues, but there are a couple.  One is whether the United States should take an active part in world affairs or stay out.  Trust is strongly associated with opinions on this:  80% of people who say that most people can be trusted say yes, against 59% of those who say "you can't be too careful."  Another is whether we are spending too much, too little, or about the right amount on foreign aid.  Trust doesn't make any discernible difference on this question. 
2.  The 2014 survey asks about "limiting climate change" and "limiting global warming."  These are the two issues on which there is the biggest gap between Democratic and Republican elites.  77% and 79% of Democratic elites say they should be very important goals--higher than any of the others, even preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.  For Republican elites, it's 7% (lower than anything except strengthening the UN) and 15% (about the same as preventing world hunger and protecting human rights).   The public was in the middle, with 40% and 45% saying they should be important goals.  Oddly, many conservative elites seem to think that they are in tune with the public on this issue.  I saw another in the New York Times the other day:  Matthew Continetti wrote "behind the rise of outsider politicians such as Mr. Trump are the interrelated issues of unchecked immigration, terrorism and the imposition of carbon taxes and other measures to mitigate climate change.  . . . efforts to fight climate change through regulation, international treaties and carbon pricing provoked a similar anti-elitist response."  I think this is related to the assumption that "elites" are almost uniformly liberal that I mentioned a couple of posts ago.