How The MAGA Cult Stands On Foreign Policy Issues

 

These charts are from The Washington Post. The data used is from a Ronald Reagan Institute National Defense Survey -- done between October 23rd and November 3rd of a nationwide sample of 2,507 adults, with a 1.96 point margin of error.

Survey Of Immigrants Reveals A Lot Of Fear And Anger

 

These charts are from a survey done by The New York Times and the Kaiser Family Foundation between August 28th and October 20th of a nationwide sample of 1,805 immigrants.

Consumer Confidence In The Economy Is Improving

 

From the University of Michigan Survey of Consumers.

44% of Adults Can't Name The 3 Branches Of Government

 

The charts above are from The Annenberg Constitution Day Survey. This survey is done yearly and released on Constitution Day (September 17th). This year the survey was done between August 3rd and 8th of a national sample of 1,001 adults, and had a 3.8 point margin of error.

Respondents were asked if they could name the three branches of the U.S. government. About 56% were able to do that. Sadly, that means 44% were NOT able to name the three branches of our government. This is very disappointing. Every American should be able to do that. It doesn't take a college degree to know that. It is one of the basics taught in every high school civics class.

And most didn't do too much better when asked to name the rights guaranteed in the First Amendment to the Constitution. Majorities could name freedom of speech (74%) and freedom of religion (56%), and only half could name freedom of the press (50%).

But only 30% could name the right to assemble and only 20% could name the right to petition the government. And 17% couldn't name any of the First Amendment rights.

But most troubling of all was when the respondents were asked if arresting the January 6th protesters violated their constitutional rights. About 49% said their arrest violated their constitutional rights (and 49% said it did not). 

It looks like a lot of people need to reread the Constitution, and its First Amendment. That amendment guarantees the right to peaceably assemble. It does not extend to violent actions (like attacking the police) or breaking into a building (in this instance, our Capitol Building). 

I suspect the loudest whiners about their rights are those who could not even name those rights -- or the three branches of government.

Most Americans Would Support A Vaccination Mandate

 

The charts above are from The COVID States Project. They questioned a national sample of 20,669 adults between June 9th and July 7th. Because of the large sample, the margin of error would be very small.

Republicans are making a big deal out of encouraging people to not get vaccinated for the Coronavirus. They want people to think it's a matter of freedom of choice.

But most of the public are not buying their argument. A clear and substantial majority of them (64%) would support a mandate that all people be vaccinated.

Trust In Putin Is Very Low Across 17 Advanced Nations

 

The charts above are from the Pew Research Center. They surveyed the citizens of 17 advanced countries, and found that trust (confidence) in Vladimir Putin (Russia) is very low. Meanwhile, confidence in Biden (U.S.), Merkel (Germany), and Macron (France) remains very high. Confidence in Xi (China) is also very low.

Congress Still Needs To Fix Our Broken Health Care System

The facts in the images above are from a new study of hospitals by Johns Hopkins University. It paints a portrait of a medical care system that is badly broken. 

We already knew that millions of Americans have no health insurance, and that prevents them from getting needed preventative care -- killing about 17,000 each year.

Now we learn that 64% have avoided or delayed getting medical care out of fear of the cost. And that fear is well-founded. Some hospitals charge patients 10 times the cost of their care, and 57 of the 100 biggest hospitals charge at least 5 times the cost.

We also learn that 58% of all debt collections in this country are because of medical debt, and thousands must declare bankruptcy each year because of it. And sadly, many of these are people who thought they had good insurance, but because of high deductibles and other uncovered expenses find themselves with huge hospital bills.

This doesn't happen in any other developed nation. It only happens in the United States, where politicians love to claim we have the best medical care in the world. The quality of care may well be excellent, but that is of no importance to the people who cannot afford care (or even health insurance).

The truth is that our heal care system is the shame of the developed world. It is broken, and needs to be fixed.

The obvious answer would be a Medicare for All system that covers all citizens and controls costs. A partial, but significant, solution would be a public option for health insurance. Sadly, neither is likely to happen as long as Senate Republicans have the filibuster. They still consider health care to be a product to be sold to those consumers who can afford it -- not a right of every citizen.

Trump Did NOT Increase GOP Share Of White Working Class

The charts above are from The Washington Post. 

Much has been made in the media of Donald Trump's supposed appeal to White working class voters. The general opinion expressed is that there was a massive shift of White working class voters from Democrats to Trump in the last election. But that may not be true.

These charts tell a different story. The top chart shows the percentage of Republican voters in the White working class. Note that it rose to 31% in 2012 (when Romney was the GOP candidate), but remained at that level in 2016 and 2020. Trump did not increase the percentage of Republicans who were in the White working class.

The second chart shows the percentage of White working class voters who voted Republican. Note that while it increased slightly from 2012 to 2016 (from 57% to 62%0, it fell in 2020 to 59% (as these workers were actually starting to abandon Trump.

NOTE - For the survey, White working class voters were identified as those without a college degree who were in the bottom half of the household income distribution.

31% of Americans Are Almost Constantly Online

 The charts above are from the Pew Research Center. It shows how important the internet has become in the lives of Americans. About 31% say they are online almost constantly, and another 48% say they go online several times a day -- for a total of 79%.  If you add in the 6% that go online at least once every day, you reach 85% that use the internet daily. Only 7% of the population say they never use the internet.

The Results Of The Black Census Project Survey

The Black Census Project surveyed over 31,000 Blacks throughout all 50 states. What they found is shown in the charts below. Politicians would do well to read their report.

Historians Rate Trump As One Of The Worst Presidents Ever

Siena College has questioned 157 presidential scholars, historians, and political scientists. They asked them to rate each of the U.S. presidents from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent) in 20 different categories. When the results were computed, it gave a rating of all the presidents from best to worst. Donald Trump did not fare well, coming in at 42 (with only James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson being rated worse.

U.S. Has Too Many Guns And Too Little Control Of Them

These charts are from the Small Arms Survey. That survey estimates that there are 857,396,100 firearms in civilian hands worldwide. About 393,347,000 of them are in the United States (about 45.88%). In fact, the United States is the only country in the world that has more forearms in civilian hands than its total population. There are 120.5 firearms per 100 people in the U.S. (or about 1.2 guns for every citizen).

That's a problem, and the problem is exacerbated by a failure to control those firearms. We let each state make its own firearms laws. Some have stricter laws and others have very lax laws. But the states with stricter laws have a problem because their citizens can just go to a state with lax laws to get whatever they want.

This is the biggest reason we have over 30,000 gun deaths each year in this country (including over 12,000 homicides by gun) -- and an average of one mass shooting every day (a shooting that kills or injures four or more people). The other reason is that our politicians are too gutless to do anything about it. They put NRA campaign money over the lives of American citizens -- refusing to even plug the holes in the federal background check law for people buying a gun. This lets anyone (criminal, terrorist, dangerously mentally ill, perpetrators of domestic violence, etc.) buy any kind of weapon and as much ammunition as they want.

They will tell you the guns are needed for protection against criminals. That's ridiculous. All other countries have criminals. They just don't let them have easy access to firearms. They try to blame it on mental illness. But all countries have mentally ill people. They just don't let them have easy access to firearms.

Gun lovers and politicians can make all the excuses they want, but we have a gun problem in this country, and we need to do something about it.

The chart below shows the firearms per 100 people of some other prominent countries.

Most Of The World Has A Poor Opinion Of Trump

We know that Trump's likability and job approval numbers are upside-down in the United States, and are unlikely to improve (since the public doesn't think he is honest or qualified). What does the rest of the world think about Trump? It turns out that his numbers in most countries are even worse than in the United States.

Confidence in the U.S. presidency has dropped from 64% under President Obama to only 22% under Donald Trump. And his unpopularity has hurt the reputation of this country -- causing it to fall from a favorable rating of 64% under Obama to 49% under Trump.

The survey also showed that most people in other countries disapprove of Trump's policies, and attribute negative characteristics to him -- with 75% saying he is arrogant, 65% saying he is intolerant, and 62% saying he is dangerous.

The chart below shows how the citizens of each country surveyed view Trump as compared to Obama. Only two countries view Trump more favorably than Obama -- Russia and Israel. All of the others viewed Obama more favorably -- most by a wide margin.

These chart are from a Pew Research Center global survey in 2017.

The 50 States Are Ranked From Safest To Least Safe

Do you live in a safe state? Wallethub did a survey. They ranked each state in five areas:

1. Personal and Residential Safety (possible 40 points)
2. Financial Safety (possible 15 points)
3. Road Safety (possible 15 points)
4. Workplace Safety (possible 15 points)
5. Emergency Preparedness (possible 15 points)

They totaled the number of points in all categories for each state, and the total numbers are shown in the charts above. A higher number translates into a safer state.

Public Says NO To Business Discrimination Against LGBT's

The Supreme Court, in a 7 to 2 decision, allowed Colorado baker to continue refusing service to members of the LGBT community. Fortunately, that decision was so narrowly tailored that it cannot be used as a precedent. Star laws denying the right of businesses to discriminate on religious grounds remain in effect. That's a good thing, and it's the way most Americans want it.

By a 27 point margin (60% to 33%), Americans say businesses should NOT be allowed to use religion to discriminate against LGBT individuals/couples (such as refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex couple). And as the chart above shows, that is the overwhelming opinion of nearly every religious group in the United States.

Only 2 groups (White evangelicals and mormons) support the right to discriminate (as long as religion is used as the excuse for it). And those groups have only slightly more than half of their members (53%) who believe that.

Most Americans, including religious people, are tired of discrimination -- and sick of having religion used as an excuse for that discrimination.

The chart above is from a survey done by the Public Religion Research Institute between April 5th and December 23rd of 2017 questioning 40,017 nationwide adults, with a margin of error of 1.2 points.

U.S. Health Care Still Poorest Of The Developed Nations

Republicans will tell you that the United States has the best health care system in the world. If you are a corporate CEO, or you were born into a wealthy family, that might be true. But for most Americans it is NOT true.

Every three years, The Commonwealth Fund does a survey of the health care systems in eleven developed nations (Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States). The charts above show the results of the 2017 survey.

As usual, the United States finished last among all of those nations. As the top and bottom charts show, the United States spends the most on medical care (as a percentage of GDP and per capita health spending). But the result of all that spending has it in 11th place out of the eleven nations.

Obamacare had put a band-aid on our system, but did not fix it (failing to control costs or cover all Americans with health insurance). The Republicans said they had a better way, but all they did was damage the little good that Obamacare had done. When it comes to health care for all Americans, we are the laughingstock of the developed world -- and that is not good for most Americans when they must access that health care (something we all must do sooner or later).

Why can't we provide all Americans with adequate health care? The other ten nations do it, and they do it at a lower cost than the U.S. does. Is it greed, political cowardice, or just that we don't care about each other?