US economy

The political perception gap


When you ask Democrats and Republicans alike about the political viewpoints of the opposing camp, they tend to exaggerate the differences. But if you want the least biased viewpoint, talk to an uneducated Democrat. That’s one of the many fascinating findings from a new study entitled “The Perception Gap: How False Impressions are Pulling Americans Apart” done by the international non-profit group More in Common, which studies political attitudes in the US and Europe.

The report, which polled a sampling of 2,100 Americans on YouGov, found that both sides of the political aisle tend to overestimate the proportion of opponents that hold extreme views (about immigration, identity politics, trade and other hot-button issues) by about double what it is in reality. Not surprisingly, the divide is exacerbated by media consumption — both social, and, sadly, traditional. Interestingly, the only form of media that actually lessens political polarisation is television network news — meaning ABC, NBC and CBS. At the risk of sounding retro, I must say that this finding only increased my own nostalgia for my childhood days when the evening news was a shared national event hosted by reassuringly serious people such as Walter Cronkite (pictured below), who was frequently cited as the “most trusted man in America”.

© AFP

Education doesn’t help things either, at least for those on the left. Higher levels of education are actually associated with a worse perception gap for Democrats (though not for Republicans). While the most inaccurate readings of the other side of the aisle come from uneducated conservatives, fuelled by partisan media (Breitbart, Rush Limbaugh, etc), educated Republicans actually have much lower levels of bias than liberal peers. Democrats who hold a postgraduate degree are three times as inaccurate as fellow lefties without a high-school degree, who are actually the most accurate readers of true political sentiment across the aisle.

This makes sense to me intuitively on many levels. Friendship diversity is a key factor in properly reading the other side of the political spectrum. Many poor, less well-educated people in Southern red states in particular still live in metaphorical and often physical segregation from those with differing viewpoints. Meanwhile, less well-educated Democrats are often found in urban areas where there may be less redlining and more social churn.

That said, when I look around the table at New York City dinner parties hosted by my own over-educated peers, I see almost no diversity at all — and quite a lot of liberal smugness about our own politically correct and “oh so well-informed” opinions. As I’ve written before, experts are the least likely to give up their own closely held ideas, even when they are proven wrong.

Ed, the hypocrisy of the liberal elite is something you’ve covered brilliantly. As you put it in one of my all-time favourite columns, “bourgeois bohemians thought they could have it both ways: capital accumulation and moral certainly with no trade-offs”. So how do you feel about the findings of this study — optimistic that the true political gap is actually smaller than we think, or pessimistic that so many of the people in charge still haven’t opened their minds to that fact?

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Edward Luce responds

Rana, I am not surprised that the higher the level of education among liberals, the greater their levels of ignorance about the other side. One of the worst effects of Donald Trump is that he triggered a blinding level of self-righteousness on the left, and particularly on the campus left. It shows few signs of abating. My fear here is that those who believe they are morally deserving passengers on the train of history will once again infuriate those considered undeserving of a ticket. America’s educated left is Trump’s best hope of a second term — and he knows it. Wealthy, educated people cannot keep telling others they are morally superior and more intellectually advanced and expect to win people over. 

Your feedback

We’d love to hear from you. You can email the team on swampnotes@ft.com, contact Ed on edward.luce@ft.com and Rana on rana.foroohar@ft.com, and follow them on Twitter at @RanaForoohar and @EdwardGLuce



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