Americans Are Not as Divided About the Pandemic as It Seems

On Trump? Yes. On measures to mitigate the pandemic and keep people safe, we're much closer.

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As COVID-19 ravages varied regions of the United States at different levels of intensity, news reports have repeatedly shown an ideological split in public opinion over how President Trump is handling this pandemic.

While polling data shows that fewer than of half of all Americans approve of the job he’s doing, data suggests that the president is maintaining considerable support from his base. And, while some conservative governors are already opening their states, Trump continues to tweet suggesting that his supporters in predominantly liberal states protest to open these states. 

These narratives are factually true but largely incomplete. They collectively do a real disservice because they create not only a genuine misunderstanding of America’s pulse during the pandemic but also suggest a level of ideological polarization that does not exist between liberal and conservative Americans when it comes to COVID-19. 

A more complete narrative is critical. Data from the Pew Research Center collected during the epidemic reveals that Americans are indeed polarized around Trump and his behavior but are not deeply divided when it comes to real, concrete safety measures to mitigate the virus and protect Americans. 

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  1. Avatar photo
    Dave IL

    I think your article is valid and makes an important point. Over the long term, I suppose, opinion polls show trends, but I don't pay much attention to them. Every journalist who cites an opinion poll has conducted interviews in which the interviewee replies to a different question than the one which was asked. Still, journalists seem to think those being polled always respond to the question exactly as it was asked.

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    Pat Riot

    A fact of life in circa-2020 opinion polling is negative politics: Trump's campaign spends very little time building up their own candidate (as if) and instead attempts to make people terrified of the opposition.

    Hence 58% of Americans polled can say Trump is a racist, yet some percentage of the people who agreed with that, based on the polling, plan to vote for him. And this is true for all kinds of things they poll on, most recently Trump's performance in this crisis.

    Trump has always benefitted from our country's overall condition being *awesome*: the economy was booming and we were in no major wars. In that context, many Americans can afford to treat politics like a TV show: no matter what happens it won't effect themselves *personally*.

    So when Republican national security experts warned Americans of palpable danger were Trump to be elected in 2016, virtually all Republican voters laughed it off and voted for him anyhow. This is why Trump seems to get *more* praise for his outrageous statements from his base since "the libs" get more angry about it, and OWNING THE LIBS IS ALL THAT MATTERS.

    And while it might take more than a few weeks (and apologies for the language), shit's about to get *real*.

    It won't be long before all Americans know at least one person connected to them who had died of the virus, and our GDP is poised to shave 10% this quarter and we're in for a permanent shift in demand that is going to leave millions jobless. And people are going to be pissed off about missing their sports, concerts, gatherings, and so on.

    In that context people are going to worry about feeding their family and not what is on the "own the libs show".

    (And how Trump will be able to run a campaign without his rallies is anybody's guess).

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    1. Avatar photo
      Bill Nelson

      A major reason Trump was elected was because those “experts” were opposed to him. A large swath of the electorate was tired of being told what to do. And the continuous drum beat of anti-Trump media reinforces that support.

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    John D. Wright

    Thank you for this article.

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  4. Avatar photo
    Visibly

    Would it not be fantastic if Trump at this stage just could be away (as invisible), and let Americans be listening to experts of pandemics: And I do not think of only medical experts, but equally much, those in economics, jurisprudence, workers, federal, states and businesses, and of course every citizen.
    Since I am an optimist by heart, I would love to see us all join together to find solutions, and that for-profits take a pause of thinking only of their shareholders and income. But here I am naive.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Bill Nelson

      I find it best to not listen to the president. But I also don’t find the idea of all of us coming together appealing. There will, and must always be, disagreements because we are all different.

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      1. Todd

        Would be boring if we all agreed on everything. Variety is the spice of life and all that. There has to be enough agreement to function, but not so much agreement that we can't take an honest look at ourselves from time to time.

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          Visibly

          I did reply on another article that it is critical that we disagree to move forward!

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    2. Todd

      So we should listen to everyone in the country except the President? Am I reading your comment correctly?

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        Visibly

        Your president is a joke, a lier, a narsissist. Since the words of the national leader are usually so important, but not with Trump, the best for US would be that he started listening rather than talking garbage. By the way, my views are completely unimportant, and hence I can talk freely: very few will listen😥

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        1. Todd

          Isn't he "our" President?

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            Visibly

            No, I am Norwegian citizen. If I had been a US citizen, I would of course have referred to him as our president.

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        2. Avatar photo
          Visibly

          Sorry, I wrote «important». Of course, what Trump says is important, devastatingly so. The word should rather be valuable, inspirational or uniting.

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