Service and Career Readiness

Many posts have discussed volunteering and civic virtue.

To repeat the obvious: correlation is not causation.  Perhaps service does improve career readiness.  But there is a very plausible alternative explanation for these correlations.  Bright, ambitious kids know that service looks good on a college application or a resume.  That is, they serve because they are primed to succeed, not the other way around.

From Gallup:

A nationally representative survey of more than 3,000 U.S. youth ages 12-25, conducted by The Allstate Foundation and Gallup, finds that youth service is linked to positive outcomes in the areas of career readiness, connection and resilience.

Eighty-two percent of youth say they have participated in at least some form of service. Youth who serve report feeling prepared for a future career, connected to their community and able to handle whatever comes their way, with the greatest benefits seen among those who engage deeply or take on leadership roles.

The study also outlines practical steps for expanding opportunities and impact. The findings are based on a Gallup Panel web study conducted Nov. 17–Dec. 1, 2025, with a margin of error of ±2.5 percentage points.

From the report:

• Engaging in service is linked to greater reported benefits in the areas of career readiness, connection and resilience. Key examples include:
• Career readiness: Half of young people (52%) report that service activities had a somewhat (38%) or very (14%) positive impact on feeling prepared for a future career.
• Connection: Seventy-nine percent of young people report that service activities had a somewhat (47%) or very (32%) positive impact on feeling connected to their community.
• Resilience: Youth with service experience are more likely to say they can handle whatever comes their way (66% vs. 52%).

 

Morality and Bellief in God

Many posts have discussed international views of religion.

Jonathan Evans at Pew:

Nearly everyone in Indonesia (99%), as well as the vast majority of people in Kenya (94%), India (85%) and South Africa (80%), say it’s necessary to believe in God to be moral.

By contrast, in about a dozen countries, two-thirds of adults or more say it’s not necessary to believe in God to be moral. This includes the United States (68%), Poland (80%), Spain (84%) and Sweden (89%).

In some countries – including the U.S. – declining shares of people say it’s necessary to believe in God to be moral and have good values, according to the survey.

In the U.S., we’ve asked this question 18 times since 2002. That includes eight surveys conducted online using our American Trends Panel and 10 surveys conducted by telephone.

From 2002 through 2011, Americans were split fairly evenly or tilted toward the view that people need to believe in God to be moral and have good values.

Starting in 2014, however, Americans have been more likely to say the opposite – that belief in God is not necessary to be moral. Since 2020, about two-thirds of U.S. adults have taken this position.

Pardon Lobbying

 Many posts have addressed the president's pardon power.

A pardon industry has arisen during the Trump years.

Kenneth Vogel at NYT:

It is based in part on the proposition that paying the right person to deliver a message tailored to Mr. Trump’s politics or grievances is more important than demonstrating remorse or a low likelihood of recidivism.

A growing number of practitioners promise access in this murky enterprise, but some also may exaggerate their effectiveness to elicit payments from clients desperate to avoid incarceration. Pardon seekers routinely offer to pay as much as $1 million or more, often with bonus payments triggered by a successful outcome, according to lobbying filings and people familiar with the fees.

This transactional approach to clemency has been welcomed by white-collar offenders like those serving time at the Otisville camp, a minimum-security facility about 75 miles northwest of Manhattan.

Many of its inmates cheered Mr. Trump’s election, seeing him as a kindred spirit who shares their grievances about the unfairness of financial crime prosecutions like the one that led to his own conviction, according to four people familiar with conversations at Otisville.

Over the course of his first term and the first year of his second, Mr. Trump has granted pardons or commutations to at least nine inmates who served at Otisville’s camp or the adjacent medium-security prison. That includes two inmates who were freed after Mr. Schwartz from the minimum-security camp, which typically houses about 100 inmates.

Americans Question Fellow Americans' Morality

Many.posts have dealt with international perspectives.

Jonathan Evans at Pew: 

Americans are more likely than people in other countries surveyed in 2025 to question the morality of their fellow countrymen, according to Pew Research Center surveys in 25 countries.

We asked people around the world to rate the morality and ethics of others in their country.

In nearly all countries surveyed, more people say that others in their country have somewhat or very good morals than say their compatriots display somewhat or very bad levels of morality.

The United States is the only place we surveyed where more adults (ages 18 and older) describe the morality and ethics of others living in the country as bad (53%) than as good (47%).

 

The Dog That Didn't Wag: War Without Rally

Many posts have discussed war powers and the US military.

Peter Baker at NYT:

President Trump likes to assert that he has accomplished things no other president has. With the opening of his military assault against Iran, he has achieved another distinction: He is the first president in the era of modern polling to take the United States to war without the support of the public.

Traditionally, Americans stand behind their president when he first orders troops into battle, generally sticking with him unless it drags on, casualties mount and victory seems increasingly elusive. With Mr. Trump’s war against Iran, the public has skipped the rally-around-the-president phase this time.

Support for his ferocious bombardment of Iran has ranged from 27 percent in a Reuters/Ipsos poll to 41 percent in a CNN survey, far below the level of public backing that Mr. Trump’s predecessors initially enjoyed when they used force overseas. Given that wars tend to grow less popular over time, the initial negative response portends political challenges for Mr. Trump and his fellow Republicans the longer the fighting continues.

The opposition is revealing about this particular moment in American history. A country already tired of decades of combat in the Middle East has shown little appetite for yet another adventure abroad. And the deep polarization of American politics only makes it harder to build support across lines. Even some Americans sympathetic to the goal of toppling the repressive, terrorist-sponsoring government in Tehran find it difficult to embrace Mr. Trump as commander in chief.

Federal Grand Juries

A number of posts have discussed juries.

John Gramlich at Pew:

Federal grand juries indict tens of thousands of people per year in the United States. Several times in the past year, however, they have made headlines for not indicting people the Trump administration has tried to prosecute, including six Democratic members of Congress and the Democratic attorney general of New York.

Here are answers to some common questions about federal grand juries, based on information from the Congressional Research Service, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, the Bureau of Justice Statistics and other sources.

• What exactly is a grand jury?
• How do federal grand juries work?
• Who can serve on a federal grand jury?
• How many Americans serve on federal grand juries each year?
• How many people do federal grand juries indict each year?
• How often do federal grand juries decline to indict someone?

Iran and the Shadow of Previous Wars

Many posts have discussed war powers and the US military.

 Natalie Jackson at National Journal:

Afghanistan was retaliation for 9/11, and was therefore extremely popular. Americans’ desire to avenge the attacks translated to more than 90 percent support for military action. More than 6 in 10 supported a long-term war. Eighteen months later when we went into Iraq, sentiment was still fairly unified and supportive of going after foreign enemies—two-thirds of voters supported military intervention to take out Saddam Hussein, including a majority of Democrats.

It also helped that the international order supported both wars in the beginning. The world was fairly easily convinced—incorrectly, as it turned out—that Iraq was making nuclear weapons. That fear was accompanied by humanitarian concerns and Iraq's alleged terrorist ties.

Both wars ultimately became unpopular and untenable. The eventual wind-down in Afghanistan was chaotic and unpopular, and in mid-2021 more than 6 in 10 Americans said it hadn’t even been worth fighting. In 2019, 62 percent of Americans and 59 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans said the Iraq war had not been worth fighting. There were two big wins: taking Saddam Hussein out of power and killing Osama bin Laden. But for most, there was little point in continuing the wars after those wins.

Americans have become increasingly isolationist in the last 15 years. Donald Trump campaigned on that isolationism, only to turn toward military action and regime change once he returned to office. That the administration is working closely with Israel also colors the reaction to attacking Iran. The American public has grown substantially less favorable toward Israel over the last few years.

We’ve been involved in periodic conflicts with Iran since the late Ayatollah Khomeini took over in 1979, particularly in trying to keep the ultra-religious regime that chants “death to America” from getting nuclear weapons. But without a huge provocation from Iran, a preemptive strike was always going to be unpopular. Combine that with the recent history of U.S. wars in the region, and you see that public reactions go far deeper than partisanship.