An analysis - or so they say.
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There’s a fable to be written about a group of sailors who learn that their boat is taking on water. The crew divides into factions, each insistent that they understand the reason that the boat is sinking: One blames cracks in the hull, another broken bilge pumps. Instead of fixing the problem, their time is consumed with arguing over it. Eventually they’re just swimming there, sharks circling, fighting about who was right.
It’s been clear for some time that Americans see the country’s political system as endangered. Polling released this week by the New York Times and Siena College reinforces that point: 7 in 10 Americans believe that it is. In fact, there’s an unusual bipartisanship to the issue: 7 in 10 Democrats, Republicans and independents all share that same conclusion.
Of course, it’s easy to tell when the boat is taking on water; you need only check the moisture level of your shoes. What’s trickier is figuring out why and whether the problem can effectively be addressed. And there our expected partisan divide reemerges.
The pollsters asked respondents to summarize the threat in one or two words. Answers varied, but the most popular responses included government (including things like corruption and politicians in general), Republicans (including Donald Trump), Democrats (including Biden) and societal or political divisions (including polarization). There’s irony to 1 in 12 respondents pointing to political divisions, of course, given that those divisions are on immediate display in the other answers.
A quarter of Democrats, for example, identified Trump or the GOP. A quarter of Republicans identified President Biden or Democrats. The most common answer from independents was government and politicians more generally.
Then the pollsters asked about specific issues: Did, say, the mainstream media pose a threat to American democracy? If so, was that threat major or minor?
As it turns out, 84 percent of respondents said that, yes, the mainstream media posed a threat to democracy, including 6 in 10 who said it posed a major threat. That was the highest percentage of any of the 10 options the pollsters presented — in part because it was one of the few options for which there was bipartisan support.
