Trump Needs His Base to Burn With Anger

… Trump portrays his political opponents — Democrats are “sick people” and the media are “enemies of the people” — as threats to the social order, aware that tapping into voter anger and anxiety is one of the most effective tools to drive up election turnout. Alex Gage, head of […] Read more »

Support for Religiously Based Refusals to Serve a Range of Minority Groups is Small, but Increasing Over the Last Five Years

Just as the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear a case of a bakery who refused to serve a gay couple due to the owner’s religious beliefs, a new PRRI survey finds that while at least two thirds of Americans oppose allowing small business owners to refuse products or […] Read more »

Public Highly Critical of State of Political Discourse in the U.S.

The public renders a harsh judgment on the state of political discourse in this country. And for many Americans, their own conversations about politics have become stressful experiences that they prefer to avoid. … Donald Trump is a major factor in people’s views about the state of the nation’s political […] Read more »

Americans weren’t always bitterly divided on abortion. This is how we got that way.

Everyone who cares about abortion has reason to be genuinely alarmed right now. … While public opinion on abortion has mostly stayed steady, the major parties have been steadily and deliberately choosing to move away from each other on the issue for decades. The confirmation of Brett M. Kavanaugh as […] Read more »

Opinion Shift and Stability: The Information Environment and Long-Lasting Opposition to Trump’s Muslim Ban

A few days after the tragic San Bernardino attacks, presidential hopeful Donald Trump first promised a “Muslim Ban.” Less than one week into his presidency, Trump made good on his promise and signed executive order (EO) 13769, which denied citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries entry into the United States. … […] Read more »