Poll assesses Trump voters on diversity, slavery and gay marriage

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For about half of this country, former President Donald Trump’s boorish behavior is reason enough to let four more years of his bombast in the White House pass. Even after his 34 criminal convictions last week, the former President seemed unable to show regret or remorse and seemed ready to challenge anything that went against his self-confidence. It all seems like a lot to swallow, and knowingly so.

But if you really take a moment to study the universe of Americans – especially the American voters who support Trump – it becomes evident very quickly how well the billionaire reality star understands his base and, in particular, their visions of nostalgia for a past that was’ are not as “great” as they like to believe. It may seem strange to those who support President Joe Biden, but it’s worth remembering that his base is equally mysterious to Trump’s constituents.

A huge new survey of the Pew Research Center asked thousands of Americans about virtually every major culture war issue, from guns to abortion to marriage equality. Many of the results are exactly what you would expect. But some responses do a particularly good job of clarifying how a large portion of this nation of immigrants remains deeply uncomfortable with the prospect of America continuing to change and become more diverse.

What polite society would consider far removed from acceptable rhetoric, Trump supporters and Biden supporters see as obvious truths. Consider the following:

The pattern held even when researchers did not frame their questions in terms of race, sexual orientation or documented status. Asked whether diversity strengthens or weakens the United States, 82% of Biden supporters said it makes the country stronger, while only half (49%) of Trump supporters hold this view and 19% of them say diversity weakens it. the US position. It’s a similar story on the question of whether Americans’ openness to foreigners is part of the nation’s identity. (Spoiler alert: It is.) Nearly all Biden supporters — 87% — agree with that sentiment, while just 36% of Trump supporters say the same.

Pew surveyed 8,709 adults, including 7,166 registered voters during one week in April. For those who don’t know much about polls, guaranteeing this number of interviewees is a huge task, which is unlikely to make these results atypical.

But sure enough, polls have found that avowed supporters of Biden or Trump leave out part of the electorate. Generally, the nation as a whole is somewhere in the middle of these two poles represented in the polls. For example, 41% of all voters think that undocumented immigrants already in the country should no be allowed to stay, while 66% of Republicans think they need to leave and 16% of Democrats say the same. (This question has been asked since 2017, so the framing is not rooted in 2024 nominees, but rather by party.) But overall, openness to allowing undocumented immigrants to stay where they are has diminished.

More broadly, the poll shows the wide — perhaps impossible — gulf between Trump and Biden supporters over the cultural flashpoints that influence so many choices in our lives. Trump voters think guns mean safety, while Biden supporters think otherwise, with a split between 86% and 23%. About 81% of Trump supporters say the criminal justice system is not strong enough, while 40% of Biden voters say the same. About a quarter (23%) of Trump voters say women’s gains have come at the expense of men, while 9% of Biden voters agree. (Not surprisingly, this sense of victimization among Trump voters is strongest among men under 50, reaching 40%.)

And when it comes to families, 59% of Trump supporters say America is a better society when marriage and children are priorities, while 19% of Biden supporters share that value.

Neither party leader appears equipped to bridge the gap between their constituencies, and it does not appear that either public is even open to hearing the other side. This dynamic sees both parties talking past each other without any real respect for the opposing view. Americans are largely accustomed to this interaction by now, but that doesn’t make the dichotomy any less shocking — or irrational. Both Trump and Biden are this year dismissing most of their skeptics and making plays directly to the parties’ bases. That means Trump has to tailor his message to his die-hard supporters and feed them a steady diet of entrenched assumptions. Biden also needs to adopt a similar trend of encouraging his base. Both hope to nurture enough of the base to prevail with less effort in switching in the middle. So if 2024 looks like a race towards the poles, the polls corroborate that feeling.

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