what Americans believe

Apparently Survey Monkey does a weekly poll of what actual Americans actually believe. Respondents are self-selected, but Survey Monkey tries to use demographic weighting to obtain representative results. A few interesting outcomes from the February 22 edition:

  • 54% disapprove of Trump, and 43% strongly disapprove.
  • 55% disapprove of Democrats in Congress and 59% disapprove of Republicans.
  • 60% have confidence in the judicial system.
  • 52% have a favorable impression of the Affordable Care Act.
  • 56% oppose building a border wall with Mexico.
  • 47% would like to see National Parks expanded, and only 9% would like to see them shrunk.
  • 68% oppose taxpayer-funded vouchers for private school.
  • 80% support NATO.
  • 66% are worried about a major war in the next four years.
  • 58% have a family member or close acquaintance who is an immigrant.

If I had more time I wouldn’t mind having a more thorough understanding of the sampling and weighting involved, but on their face these numbers just support the idea that our politics is broken. Our politicians are not delivering policies that a majority of Americans would support, which suggests our voting system is not delivering politicians who really represent us.

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