A Majority without Representation
In two recent Commentaries, we reviewed legislation passed by Congress and the president. Little to no progress has been made on the major issues of our time such as healthcare, climate change, and gun violence. Are the radical factions of each party preventing progress? Do Americans care? Do we even have consensus on any of these issues? Let’s try to be fact-based and rational.
Our Method: Any attempt to assess what Americans think is highly imperfect. Polling data diverges considerably by poll and by time. In order to eliminate the inconsistency across polls and avoid the potential accusation of “cherry picking,” we have relied exclusively on polling data from Gallup, one of the oldest and most credible of the sources available.
What do Americans think is important? In 2018, Gallup found that the majority of registered voters identified eleven issues as extremely/very important, including healthcare, immigration, gun policy, income distribution, climate change, and trade policy.
Let’s consider three of these: healthcare, gun policy, and climate change,
Healthcare: When asked whether or not government should be responsible for healthcare, Democrats and Republicans disagree, with 80% of Democrats answering yes, while only 21% of Republicans answer yes. Given that the House, Senate, and executive branch are split, this might explain why there is no progress in addressing healthcare. However, this analysis leaves out the views of Independents.
This is a significant factor, given that Gallup finds that 42% of Americans self-identify as Independent, 30% as Democrat, and 26% as Republican. When asked the same question, 56% of Independents answer in the affirmative. When the responses of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents are combined and weighted by the percentages of Americans in each category, the result is that 53% of Americans believe that government should be responsible for healthcare. (Note that “responsible” does not mean that government should directly administer all healthcare, just that it should ensure that healthcare is available.)
In summary, when Independents are considered, a majority of registered voters believe healthcare is a major issue and a majority believe government should enable the solution. Despite this consensus, no progress has been made in addressing the issue, other than the successful attempts by both parties to reverse elements of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). (Republicans reversed the individual mandate, and both parties combined to repeal three of the principal taxes imposed to finance the ACA.)
Gun control: The issue of gun control follows a similar but even more pronounced pattern. While 88% of Democrats register support for stricter laws on gun sales, only 36% of Republicans do. This, in combination with the influence of the NRA on a segment of the Republican Party, results in stalemate on the issue. However, when you factor in the fact that 65% of Independents support stricter laws on gun sales, and give them the 42% weighting that they constitute, we find that in total 63% of Americans favor stricter laws on gun sales. Despite this, the minority faction prevents compromise.
The issue of gun control is even more interesting given the fact that only 30% of Americans own a gun, and only 43% of Americans live in a household with a gun. Nonetheless, this minority manages to thwart the will of the majority.
The last example of this reality is climate change. Gallup asks several questions on this subject, but let’s consider three of them: Do you believe global warming is caused by human activities; do you worry a great deal/fair amount about global warming; and do you think global warming will pose a serious threat in our lifetime?
29% of Republicans responded yes on average, while 82% of Democrats did. The result is stalemate. Again, when Independents are factored in, 56% of whom responded yes on average, the majority (56%) answer yes to the three questions. Despite this, the minority has succeeded not only in blocking progress on climate change, but in reversing many of the regulations advanced by the prior administration to address it.
At OurFutureAmerica®, we believe that the true underlying majority of Americans would be able to reach agreement at least directionally on how to address our most pressing problems. The details of execution surely would require debate and compromise. But at least we should try. In fact, any reasonable fact-based discussion would be an improvement over the present state of affairs.