Covid and the ‘Very Liberal’

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The left-right divide over Covid-19 — with blue America taking the virus more seriously than red America — has never been the pandemic’s only political divide. Each partisan tribe has also had its internal disagreements. …

The key dividing line appears to be ideology. Americans who identify as “very liberal” are much more worried about Covid than Americans who identify as “somewhat liberal” or “liberal.” Increasingly, the very liberal look like outliers on Covid: The merely liberal are sometimes closer to moderates than to the very liberal. That is a central finding of a poll conducted last week by Morning Consult for this newsletter. CONTINUED

David Leonhardt, New York Times

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Why Republicans are excited about a culture war they know they’re losing

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… For some time, PRRI has asking Americans about same-sex marriage, laws protecting LGBTQ people from discrimination, and allowing businesses to refuse service to LGBTQ people because of their religious beliefs. The top-line results could hardly be clearer: In the latest data, 68 percent of Americans support same-sex marriage, 79 percent support protections against discrimination, and 66 percent oppose allowing service refusals. …

Even if there’s still opposition to LGBTQ rights among conservatives, that opposition is declining over time. In 2014, 35 percent of Republicans supported same-sex marriage, while in 2021, 48 percent did.

But to engineer a political backlash, you don’t actually need to win converts to your cause. Often, all you need is to persuade the people who haven’t changed their minds as the world changes around them to get more upset. Which is what we’re seeing right now. CONTINUED

Paul Waldman, Washington Post

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How COVID has changed (most of) us

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Americans are reentering a more expansive state of mind. COVID seems less threatening. More of us are resuming our normal lives. But this raises the question – what is “normal” after two years of a global pandemic? Hard to say. COVID will leave its imprint long into the future.

One of the more obvious ways it has changed us is in our collective approach to health risk mitigation strategies. Most of us will now be more open to wearing masks, more mindful of washing hands and occupying public spaces going forward. Our data suggests that masks are lagging indicators – donned as the perceived risk of COVID rises, set aside as it diminishes.

Another, less positive outcome is the extent to which the public remains divided (or simply confused) about what level of threat COVID represents. CONTINUED

Clifford Young & Catherine Morris, Ipsos

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America Has a Free Speech Problem

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For all the tolerance and enlightenment that modern society claims, Americans are losing hold of a fundamental right as citizens of a free country: the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned. …

In a new national poll commissioned by Times Opinion and Siena College, only 34 percent of Americans said they believed that all Americans enjoyed freedom of speech completely. The poll found that 84 percent of adults said it is a “very serious” or “somewhat serious” problem that some Americans do not speak freely in everyday situations because of fear of retaliation or harsh criticism. …

The Times Opinion/Siena College poll found that 46 percent of respondents said they felt less free to talk about politics compared to a decade ago. Thirty percent said they felt the same. Only 21 percent of people reported feeling freer, even though in the past decade there was a vast expansion of voices in the public square through social media. CONTINUED

Editorial Board, New York Times

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Unpacking Biden’s Vulnerabilities

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President Biden and the Democrats have paid a terrible toll in public opinion over the last 13 months. And his political ledger still drips with red ink, despite the misplaced optimism coming from some Democrats.

True, coming on the heels of his mostly well-reviewed State of the Union, Biden’s numbers saw a big jump in an NPR/PBS/Marist College poll, which showed his approvals jump from 39 percent in February to 47 percent, and disapproval dropping from 55 to 50 percent. The poll averages, however, show a bump of a couple of points at best, with some showing none at all.

Looking under the hood of some of these polls shows what his problems are. CONTINUED

Charlie Cook

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Here’s what Americans think the US should be doing about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

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Americans’ support for economic sanctions on Russia is broad and bipartisan, according to new polling on the public’s response to the war in Ukraine. And so far, that’s the case even when the potential for higher gas prices is considered. At the same time, the American public largely continues to oppose direct military action on the part of the US. CONTINUED

Ariel Edwards-Levy, CNN

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