More than 70 percent of US voters believe nation is in a constitutional crisis, Pell Center survey finds
PROVIDENCE – More than 70 percent of registered voters in the United States believe the nation is in a constitutional crisis, including the vast majority of Democrats and nearly half of Republicans, according to a new national survey by The Pell Center at Salve Regina University released on Wednesday.
More than 2,000 voters were polled in early May and asked about their views on political institutions, democracy, media, and members of the opposing political party, “as well as a series of questions used to measure authoritarian attitudes,” according to a report on the findings.
The survey is the fifth installment of the Newport, R.I.-based center’s “Voices of Value” project that works to break down the nuances of political polarization. The poll was fielded by Embold Research and has a margin of error of 2.2 percent.
According to the findings, 73 percent of registered voters polled indicated they “strongly/somewhat agree” the United States is in a constitutional crisis, while 24 percent indicated they “strongly/somewhat disagree.” Another 3 percent were not sure.
Meanwhile, 95 percent of Democrats agreed with the question, as did 79 percent of independents, the survey results show. Forty-eight percent of Republicans indicated they also agreed, although another 48 percent said they disagreed, and 3 percent were not sure.
“Americans remain deeply divided on the basic state of American democracy itself,” The Pell Center researchers said in a statement.
Sixty-one percent of Democrats agreed that “the United States is a dictatorship,” compared to only 5 percent of Republicans and 47 percent of independents, the survey results show.
“Most Americans believe the United States is facing a constitutional crisis, but stark differences in opinion between Republicans and Democrats on the health of U.S. democracy exist,” according to the report. “Over 9 in 10 Democrats agree the United States is in a constitutional crisis. Though nearly half of Republicans agree, over half believe the U.S. has a strong system of checks and balances (55 percent) and that the economy is thriving (65 percent).”
By contrast, among Democrats, only 6 percent felt that way about the economy, and only 20 percent agreed the government has “a strong system of checks and balances.”
The survey also revealed a deep partisan divide over US Immigration and Customs Enforcement practices: 80 percent of Republicans indicated they support ICE officers “regularly conducting surveillance and arrests at sensitive locations like schools, hospitals, places of worship, and social service locations,” compared to only 2 percent of Democrats.
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Seventy-four percent of Republicans also said they would support stripping US citizens of their citizenship and deporting them “if they are determined to be a threat to the country,” and only 12 percent of Democrats supported that sentiment, the findings show.
The survey also placed respondents on an “authoritarian scale,” based on their answers to “eight questions about child-rearing values,” the report states.
“Respondents chose between two desirable traits for children (for example, independence vs. respect for others; disciplined vs. adaptable; loyal vs. open-minded),” the report states. “The scale measures authoritarianism attributes which can occur in both conservatives and progressives and because the questions are not about politics, they are partially exogenous to political preference.”
The survey found “Americans with the strongest authoritarian attitudes are more likely to support political actions that violate democratic norms,” including “ignoring court decisions, censoring media sources, and changing election rules to disadvantage the political opposition,” according to the center.
While most Americans generally do not support those violations, “higher levels of authoritarianism are associated with conservative political identification,” the report said.
According to the survey, of those who scored high on the scale, 80 percent were Republican or leaned Republican, 37 percent identified as MAGA, and 48 percent as conservative.
Overall, “support for democratic norm violations remains relatively low,” the center said.
“It’s heartening that so few Americans support actions which run counter to core democratic values, but I continue to be concerned that Americans are evaluating the same political system through very different lenses,” Pell Center Associate Director and Fellow Katie Sonder said in a statement. “Americans are assessing democratic health, institutional effectiveness, and economic conditions along partisan lines, making it increasingly difficult to build a shared understanding of reality.”
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