"From the River to the Sea" and Political Ignorance

 A number of posts have discussed antisemitism and the Israel-Hamas war.

Ron E. Hassner at WSJ:

When college students who sympathize with Palestinians chant “From the river to the sea,” do they know what they’re talking about? I hired a survey firm to poll 250 students from a variety of backgrounds across the U.S. Most said they supported the chant, some enthusiastically so (32.8%) and others to a lesser extent (53.2%).

But only 47% of the students who embrace the slogan were able to name the river and the sea. Some of the alternative answers were the Nile and the Euphrates, the Caribbean, the Dead Sea (which is a lake) and the Atlantic. Less than a quarter of these students knew who Yasser Arafat was (12 of them, or more than 10%, thought he was the first prime minister of Israel). Asked in what decade Israelis and Palestinians had signed the Oslo Accords, more than a quarter of the chant’s supporters claimed that no such peace agreements had ever been signed. There’s no shame in being ignorant, unless one is screaming for the extermination of millions.

...

In all, after learning a handful of basic facts about the Middle East, 67.8% of students went from supporting “from the river to sea” to rejecting the mantra. These students had never seen a map of the Mideast and knew little about the region’s geography, history or demography. Those who hope to encourage extremism depend on the political ignorance of their audiences. It is time for good teachers to join the fray and combat bias with education.

Holocaust Denial

 Nick Robertson at The Hill

A fifth of Americans ages 18-29 believe the Holocaust was a myth, according to a new poll from The Economist/YouGov. While the question only surveyed a small sample of about 200 people, it lends credence to concerns about rising antisemitism, especially among young people in the U.S. Another 30 percent of young people said they didn’t agree or disagree with the statement, while the remaining 47 percent disagreed. Only 7 percent of Americans overall believe the Holocaust is a myth, according to the poll.

 Congress and the White House have placed special attention on fighting antisemitism in recent weeks as the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza continues to divide public opinion. Leaders of top universities were grilled by a House committee this week on the topic, drawing criticism for vague answers on what comments constituted antisemitic harassment. About a third of Americans described antisemitism as a “very serious problem” in the poll, with just more than a quarter of young people saying the same. 

On Friday, a bipartisan group of senators, led by Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), introduced a bill to reauthorize the Never Again Education Act, providing federal funding for Holocaust education. “Failing to educate students about the gravity and scope of the Holocaust is a disservice to the memory of its victims and to our duty to prevent such atrocities in the future,” Rosen said in a statement. “At a time of rising antisemitism, reauthorizing the bipartisan Never Again Education Act will help ensure that educators have the resources needed to teach students about the Holocaust and help counter antisemitic bigotry and hate.”

From a 2018 survey by the Claims Conference

• Nearly one-third of all Americans (31 percent) and more than 4-in-10 Millennials (41 percent) believe that substantially less than 6 million Jews were killed (two million or fewer) during the Holocaust
• While there were over 40,000 concentration camps and ghettos in Europe during the Holocaust, almost half of Americans (45 percent) cannot name a single one – and this percentage is even higher amongst Millennials

 The survey asked an open-ended question: "From what you know or have heard, what was Auschwitz? 

......................................................All adults ..................Under 35

Concentration camp ........................40% ............................22% 

Death/extermination camp ..............23% ............................11% 

Forced labor camp ............................1% ...............................2% 

Other ................................................21% ............................31% 

Not sure ...........................................20% .............................35%

Knowing the Constitution

From the Annenberg Public Policy Center:

Many Americans do not know what rights are protected under the First Amendment and a substantial number cannot name all three branches of government, according to the 2023 Annenberg Constitution Day Civics Survey.

The Annenberg Public Policy Center’s annual, nationally representative survey finds that when U.S. adults are asked to name the specific rights guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution, only one right is recalled by most of the respondents: Freedom of speech, which 77% named.

The civics knowledge survey, released annually to celebrate Constitution Day (Sept. 17), also finds that although two-thirds of Americans (66%) can name all three branches of government, 10% can name two, 7% can name only one, and 17% cannot name any.

As in the recent past, the Annenberg Constitution Day Civics Survey was fielded in a year of high-profile events that propelled the workings of government into the daily news cycle. This year saw four criminal indictments of former President Donald Trump and numerous trials for those charged in the 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol. Led by a conservative supermajority, the U.S. Supreme Court sidelined race-conscious college admissions programs and a Biden Administration student-loan forgiveness plan. Several of the associate justices were dogged by allegations of unethical conduct. A plea deal to resolve a gun charge and tax offenses by President Joe Biden’s son Hunter collapsed, while in Congress, Republican Representatives discussed whether to open impeachment proceedings against Biden.

“It is worrisome that one in six U.S. adults cannot name any of the branches of government and that only 1 in 20 can name all five freedoms protected by the First Amendment,” said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center and director of the survey. “One is unlikely to cherish or work to protect freedoms one does not know one has and will have trouble holding elected and unelected leaders accountable if one does not understand the nature and prerogatives of each branch and the ways in which the power of each is kept in check.”

Knowledge of SCOTUS

Charles Franklin at Polls and Votes:

The limits of public attention to the Court is vividly illustrated by awareness of the balance of justices nominated by Republican and by Democratic presidents. Nominations have been intensely contested for over a decade (arguably longer) and the three Trump appointments followed in the wake of Obama’s nominee being denied hearings or a vote in 2016 following Justice Scalia’s death. If a lot of politics has been “all about the judges”, much of the public hasn’t followed the story.

Despite a long standing Republican-appointed majority on the Court, and the current 6-3 majority, 30% of the public believes a majority of the justices were appointed by Democratic presidents. About 40% say a majority was “probably” appointed by Republican presidents, and just 30% say a majority was “definitely” appointed by Republican presidents.

...

More than 60% say they don’t have an opinion of Justice Alito. In November 2022 we asked respondents for their best guess as to which justice authored the Dobbs decision. A quarter correctly picked Alito, with another quarter picking Thomas, and a scattering among the other justices. This is a very difficult question for the general public, who do not as a rule rush to read opinions by their favorite justices. Perhaps it is impressive that as many as 1/4 got Alito right, and Thomas is not a bad guess, given his concurrence. Still, the point is most people don’t have specific information about individual justices even in the most visible decisions.

...

There is a reporting and messaging lesson here. A substantial share of the audience you are trying to reach is likely unaware of some facts you take for granted. It is important to expand awareness of those facts by making them part of your story, even if they seem “obvious.

Attention and Credulity

 Natalie Jackson at National Journal:

At best, only one third of Americans pay close attention to politics. In a recent Marquette Law School poll, just 36 percent of respondents said they follow politics most of the time. Using different wording, a Grinnell College-Selzer poll from March found that 28 percent of Americans say they pay a lot of attention to political news.

...

When it comes to paying attention to presidential campaigns, there is even more reason to think we dramatically overestimate how invested people are. Pew Research has asked respondents how much thought they have given to the candidates running for president in the lead-up to the last several presidential elections. In the summer of 2019, barely a quarter had given the candidates much thought. The figures were similar in mid-2015. (Pew has not yet asked the question for the 2024 cycle.)

The poll also found that older people are more likely to say that they follow politics "most of the time" 

• 18-29  36%
• 30-44  43%
• 45-59  63%
• 60+    74%

And so they tend to have more contextual knowledge, which helps them sort fake headlines from true ones.

 Sawdah Bhaimiya at Business Insider:

Boomers have always taken the flack for falling for fake news stories, but a survey has found it's younger generations that are more susceptible to online misinformation.

The survey of 1,516 US adults, published Thursday, was conducted by polling organization YouGov in April 2023. It examined how likely people were to be fooled by fake headlines. The survey is based on a framework called The Misinformation Susceptibility Test, developed by University of Cambridge psychologists.

The 2-minute test, now available to the public, required participants to look at 20 headlines and determine which were fake and real. It found that, on average, 65% of those surveyed were able to correctly classify them.

Surprisingly, the survey found that younger respondents were not as adept at spotting the difference between real and fake headlines as their older counterparts who have often been memed for their online naivete.

Electing Idiots

Liz Cheney:

"What we’ve done in our politics is create a situation where we’re electing idiots...

I look at it through the lens of how do we elect serious people? And I think electing serious people can’t be partisan...And part of the problem is we have this closed partisan… pic.twitter.com/FJhv7eYeIq

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) June 27, 2023

From the Hugh Hewitt interview with Francis Suarez: https://t.co/OzgJloODWJ pic.twitter.com/b9LCcwCM4e

— David Weigel (@daveweigel) June 27, 2023

“I'll look at — what’d you call it, a ‘Weeble?’”

— 2024 GOP presidential candidate Francis Suarez on Uyghurs pic.twitter.com/wAW8lGg0IK

— The Recount (@therecount) June 27, 2023

CRS Troubles

A number of posts have discussed congressional capacity. The Congressional Resarch Service is especially important in this regard.

Kevin Kosar at The Hill:

Congress calls upon CRS frequently. In 2021, for example, the think tank provided 265 in-person briefings, 2,729 confidential memoranda, 24,044 telephone responses and 34,844 email responses. The agency also wrote 1,073 reports for Congress and 13,348 bill summaries, which the Hill and the public read on Congress.gov.

While it is indubitable that CRS employees are doing a fine job, the agency itself has had troubles for more than a decade.

In 2019, Congress took a close look at flagging staff morale and employee frustration with CRS’s leadership. The Committee on House Administration (CHA) made clear that it wanted CRS leadership to right the ship. That did not happen. A survey of CRS staff last year revealed sky-high displeasure with CRS’s front office. So, the CHA’s Subcommittee on Modernization recently held another oversight hearing to get to the bottom of things. (Disclosure: I testified at this hearing.)

Chairwoman Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.) grilled CRS director, Dr. Mary Mazanec, over a bungled $20 million technology project that has left CRS staff writing reports and memoranda with a buggy version of Microsoft Word 2016. The committee also heard that staff service to Congress was suffering due to patchy Wi-Fi in their offices, Zoom accounts that shut down after 40 minutes of use and difficulty in getting technical support.

Declines in Civics and History Proficiency

 Donna St. George at WP:

Just 13 percent of the nation’s eighth graders were proficient in U.S. history last year, and 22 percent were proficient in civics, marking another decline in performance during the pandemic and sounding an alarm about how well students understand their country and its government.

The findings, released Wednesday, show a five-point slide since 2018 in the average history score on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, often called “the nation’s report card.” In civics, eighth grade scores fell two points, the first decline ever recorded on the tests, which cover the American political system, principles of democracy and other topics.

Peggy G. Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, referred to the results as “a national concern,” saying that “too many of our students are struggling … to understand and explain the importance of civic participation, how American government works and the historical significance of events.”

Opinion About World Leaders: Knowledge and Polarization

Jacob Poushter  and Moira Fagan at Pew:

Americans’ awareness of foreign leaders varies greatly by age. Adults under 30 are much less likely than those ages 65 and older to be familiar with every leader included in the Center’s new survey – with the exception of Putin, who is known to the vast majority of the public.

For example, nearly six-in-ten Americans ages 18 to 29 say they have never heard of Modi, compared with 28% of those 65 and older. Large age differences also appear for Scholz, Netanyahu and Macron.

There are also consistent gaps in awareness by other demographic factors. Men, for instance, are more likely than women to offer an opinion on various world leaders and less likely to say they have never heard of them. The same is true of more educated Americans relative to those with less formal education. This tracks with past Center research on specific international knowledge among Americans.

Knowledge of Government

From the Annenberg Public Policy Center:

After two years of considerable improvement, Americans’ knowledge of some basic facts about their government has fallen to earlier levels, with less than half of those surveyed able to name the three branches of government for the 2022 Annenberg Constitution Day Civics Survey.

The Annenberg Public Policy Center’s annual, nationally representative survey showed notable increases in 2020 and 2021 after tumultuous years that put the role of government and the three branches under a media spotlight. In those two years, the survey was run amid a pandemic and government health restrictions, two impeachment inquiries, a presidential election, an attempt to disrupt congressional certification of the electoral vote, criminal trials of the individuals charged in the assault on the U.S. Capitol, and waves of social justice protests, among other events.

The current survey, released for Constitution Day (Sept. 17), found the first drop in six years among those who could identify all three branches of government, and declines among those who could name the First Amendment rights, though knowledge remained high on some other questions. Additional findings on the Supreme Court will be released next month.

“When it comes to civics, knowledge is power,” said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. “It’s troubling that so few know what rights we’re guaranteed by the First Amendment. We are unlikely to cherish, protect, and exercise rights if we don’t know that we have them.”
Highlights

• Less than half of U.S. adults (47%) could name all three branches of government, down from 56% in 2021 and the first decline on this question since 2016.
• The number of respondents who could, unprompted, name each of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment also declined, sharply in some cases. For example, less than 1 in 4 people (24%) could name freedom of religion, down from 56% in 2021.
• Over half of Americans (51%) continue to assert incorrectly that Facebook is required to let all Americans express themselves freely on its platform under the First Amendment.
• But large numbers recognize other rights in the Bill of Rights and the veto process.

The Annenberg Constitution Day Civics Survey is a nationally representative survey conducted annually in advance of Constitution Day by the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania. This year’s survey of 1,113 U.S. adults was conducted by phone for APPC by independent research company SSRS on August 2-13, 2022. It has a margin of error of ± 3.6 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. The year-to-year changes reported here are statistically significant unless noted otherwise. For the questions and additional data, see the appendix and the methodology statement.

Americans' International Knowledge

 Many posts have discussed public knowledge of issues and events.

From Pew:

Knowledge of Issues and Events -- Including The Slap

Many posts have discussed public knowledge of issues and events.

88% of Americans have seen, read or heard about Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars— on par with the general awareness of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and well ahead of other major news events. https://t.co/GLz8apXW1R pic.twitter.com/vLqdQiOjpE

— Morning Consult (@MorningConsult) April 1, 2022

Estimating the Size of Groups

Taylor Orth at YouGov:

When it comes to estimating the size of demographic groups, Americans rarely get it right. In two recent YouGov polls, we asked respondents to guess the percentage (ranging from 0% to 100%) of American adults who are members of 43 different groups, including racial and religious groups, as well as other less frequently studied groups, such as pet owners and those who are left-handed.

When people’s average perceptions of group sizes are compared to actual population estimates, an intriguing pattern emerges: Amercians tend to vastly overestimate the size of minority groups. This holds for sexual minorities, including the proportion of gays and lesbians (estimate: 30%, true: 3%), bisexuals (estimate: 29%, true: 4%), and people who are transgender (estimate: 21%, true: 0.6%).

It also applies to religious minorities, such as Muslim Americans (estimate: 27%, true: 1%) and Jewish Americans (estimate: 30%, true: 2%). And we find the same sorts of overestimates for racial and ethnic minorities, such as Native Americans (estimate: 27%, true: 1%), Asian Americans (estimate: 29%, true: 6%), and Black Americans (estimate: 41%, true: 12%).

A parallel pattern emerges when we look at estimates of majority groups: People tend to underestimate rather than overestimate their size relative to their actual share of the adult population. For instance, we find that people underestimate the proportion of American adults who are Christian (estimate: 58%, true: 70%) and the proportion who have at least a high school degree (estimate: 65%, true: 89%).

The most accurate estimates involved groups whose real proportion fell right around 50%, including the percentage of American adults who are married (estimate: 55%, true: 51%) and have at least one child (estimate: 58%, true: 57%).

Misperceptions of the size of minority groups have been identified in prior surveys, which observers have often attributed to social causes: fear of out-groups, lack of personal exposure, or portrayals in the media. Yet consistent with prior research, we find that the tendency to misestimate the size of demographic groups is actually one instance of a broader tendency to overestimate small proportions and underestimate large ones, regardless of the topic.

 

Supreme Court: Attitudes and Knowledge

From C-SPAN:

As the Senate prepares to consider a new U.S. Supreme Court justice, a new online national survey of more than 1,000 likely voters conducted for C-SPAN demonstrates strong public interest in the Court's work and awareness of the Court’s relevance. 

Over four in five respondents (84%) say Supreme Court decisions have “an impact on their

everyday lives.” Further, two-thirds (65%) say the Court should allow TV coverage of its oral arguments, with 70% saying allowing TV cameras would build trust in the Court.  

C-SPAN asked Pierrepont Analytics LLC to examine public awareness of the U.S. Supreme Court and related concerns such as trust, transparency, live oral argument audio awareness (a COVID-related innovation), and other topics including support for a Court Code of Ethics, 18- year terms for justices and TV cameras in the courtroom.  

Forty-six percent of respondents see the Court as a partisan institution. “Trust in the federal

government has taken a powerful hit in recent years,” said Robert Green, pollster

for Pierrepont Analytics. “But there is one ray of light among the gloom. Under-50 American voters are much more likey to listen to Supreme Court oral argument audio than age 50+ voters. Awareness and exposure to oral arguments audio are building favorability and trust in the Court.”   

The Supreme Court began providing live audio of its oral arguments during the pandemic, in May 2020. Green pointed out that, according to the survey, American voters younger than 50 are much more likely to know (55%-38%) there are live audio oral arguments and more likely to have listened than age 50+ voters. Under-50 age voters are especially likely (58%) to say oral argument audio has provided them a more favorable view of the Supreme Court.

“This survey demonstrates that Americans have found and are listening to the Court's oral

arguments and that listeners are coming away with a generally higher opinion of the Court,” said C-SPAN co-CEO Susan Swain. “That’s a strong message that more transparency is good for the Court — and good for the public.”

Other key survey findings:

• Only 56% of voters understand that the three branches of government are co-equal.  
• Among the 44% who say the branches are not equal: Respondents say the Executive branch has the most power (51%), then the Legislative branch (26%) followed by the Judiciary (23%).  
• One in four (28%) U.S. voters identified Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Biden's justice nominee, by name. (Another 15% could report that the new Supreme Court nominee is a Black female judge.)
• 42% say the Senate confirmation hearings are “an effective and fair tool” for deciding onCourt appointees.
• Among the sitting justices, the two best known are Clarence Thomas (24%) and Chief Justice John Roberts (22%).
• Only one landmark Supreme Court case is well-known to American voters: Roe v. Wade (named by 40%); next: Brown v. Board of Education (named by just 6%).
• Voters favor greater racial diversity (69%) on the Court, and 59% say it would be better if justices came from a more diverse set of universities beyond northeastern Ivy League colleges.
• Voters support an 18-year term limit for justices (69%) over the current lifetime
• appointments.
• Voters support a Code of Ethics for the Supreme Court (72%).
  

See what the public thinks in the complete poll results:  

www.c-span.org/SCOTUSsurvey2022/

Public Opinion and Knowledge of Ukraine

 Nate Cohn at NYT:

As recently as a year ago, many Americans did not know what to make of Ukraine — if they knew anything about it at all. One-third of voters couldn’t say whether it was friendly or unfriendly to the U.S.

Not anymore.

In a striking — if perhaps not surprising — shift over the last year and since Russia’s invasion, an overwhelming majority of Americans now say Ukraine is a friendly country. In a new YouGov survey, 81 percent of Americans say Ukraine is either friendly or an ally, a figure that rivals or even exceeds that of many longtime U.S. allies like France or Japan. Only Britain, Canada and Australia earned more favorable ratings from voters.

YouGov, an online polling firm, has tracked the American public’s views on dozens of countries since 2017.

In recent years, American attitudes toward Ukraine have shifted more than toward any other country. When the poll tested U.S. attitudes on Ukraine in September 2019, 36 percent of registered voters were not sure whether Ukraine was friendly or unfriendly. That’s a higher share than for nearly any of the other thousands of instances when YouGov asked voters what they thought about a country over the last five years. Only 41 percent called the nation friendly or an ally.

Now, only 10 percent aren’t sure whether Ukraine is friendly, a lower tally than for almost any other country.

Nearly 70 percent of Americans now consider Russia an enemy, more than for any other country in the survey, including North Korea and Iran.

The United States has been racing to support the Ukrainian war effort, including a $13.6 billion spending plan passed all but unanimously by the House this week.

Finding Ukraine

 Morning Consult finds that 34 percent of voters could find Ukraine on a map of Europe.

• Voters are split evenly over whether the United States should send additional weapons to Ukraine while conducting talks with Russia aimed at resolving tensions, with 41 percent in favor and 42 percent opposed.
• Twenty-nine percent said the United States should send more troops to Europe if Russia invades Ukraine, even if it risks their lives. The same number supported more deployments only if U.S. troops were unlikely to be hurt, while 1 in 4 said Washington should not deploy any additional troops.
• When asked to find Ukraine on a blank map of Europe, only about 1 in 3 voters correctly located the country, slightly more than the 28 percent who were able to identify Iran on a map roughly two years ago in the wake of a U.S. strike on the Islamic Republic’s most powerful commander. Nearly 3 in 4 voters were able to find Russia on the map.
• No respondent selected Crimea when asked to identify Russia, which took the peninsula by military force from Ukraine in 2014 and claims to have annexed it, but many did select it when identifying Ukraine.
• Voters with a better grasp on Eastern European geography were also more likely than their peers to back assertive positions: 50 percent of those who could locate Ukraine said the U.S. should send arms to Kyiv while negotiating with Russia, compared to 37 percent among those who could not, and 58 percent of voters who could find Ukraine said they’d support the most strenuous sanctions package if Moscow invades the country, compared to 41 percent of voters who could not.

Opinion on the Debt and Debt Limit

Karlyn Bowman at AEI:

An Axios/Ipsos Hard Truth Higher Education poll from August, for example, asked people to name issues that worried them the most, and government budget and debt tied with immigration for sixth place behind coronavirus, political extremism, climate, crime, and health care. In Gallup’s mid-August question that asks people to volunteer what they think is the most important problem facing the country, 2 percent spontaneously mentioned the federal deficit and debt. In the abstract, Americans have long wanted the country to live within its means, but at the same time, they want government to do a lot. Most recent polls show solid support for the $1 trillion infrastructure legislation and slightly less enthusiastic support for the $3.5 trillion social infrastructure package.

The news cycle moves at a dizzying speed, and it is likely that if the US comes close to defaulting on the federal debt sometime in October, the public will start paying attention. This happened in past showdowns as people realized that government checks would stop, not to mention dire global financial implications. In early August 2011, 71 percent in a Pew Research Center poll said they had been following the negotiations on the debt limit deal very or fairly closely. A mid-October 2013 question from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 75 percent followed the fight between President Obama and congressional leaders about the extension and the shutdown very or fairly closely. (In 2011, resolution came in early August and in 2013, it came in mid-October.)

BIG CAVEAT:  Many people do not understand this issue.  It is likely that they equate raising the debt ceiling with increasing spending.  That is false. 

GAO reports: 

• The debt ceiling does not control the amount of debt. Instead, it is an after-the-fact measure that restricts the Treasury’s ability to borrow to finance the decisions already enacted by Congress and the President.
• Delays in raising the debt ceiling can disrupt financial markets, increase U.S. borrowing costs, and threaten the full faith and credit of the United States.

Americans Notice the Increase in COVID

Linley Sanders at YouGov:

In the last few days, the United States has set new daily records for the number of positive COVID-19 tests reported. Recent infection levels have been higher than they were even during the July peak.

The latest Yahoo News/YouGov poll shows that the increase has not gone unnoticed by voters. The percentage of registered voters who say "the number of cases is increasing" in the United States jumped nine percentage points over the last week, from 63% to 72%.

That number has been steadily rising throughout October, and across party lines. At the beginning of the month, a quarter (24%) of Republicans saw the case count rising. This week, that recognition has doubled (48%). Two-thirds (68%) of Democrats in early October said coronavirus cases were increasing; this week, 90% believe this to be the situation.

Foreign Policy: Experts and the Public

Jacob Poushter and Moira Fagan at Pew:

Foreign policy might not be the primary issue of the 2020 presidential election campaign, but Americans have clear ideas on the various threats facing the United States. Recent Pew Research Center surveys find that Americans are especially concerned about the spread of infectious diseases and are more likely than not to blame China for its role in the current COVID-19 pandemic.

But foreign policy experts have distinctly different perspectives. A September survey of 706 international relations scholars in the U.S. as part of the College of William & Mary’s Teaching, Research and International Policy (TRIP) poll found that their assessment of the current crises facing America and the world are often at odds with those of the U.S. general public.

These experts are less concerned about terrorism, more concerned about climate change and much more positive about China’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, even as they are harshly critical of the U.S. response. However, scholars and the American people do agree that U.S. policy should work to promote human rights in China, even at the expense of economic relations.

Civic Knowledge 2020

 From the Annenberg Public Policy Center:

In a period defined by an impeachment inquiry, a pandemic, nationwide protests over racial injustice, and a contentious presidential campaign, Americans’ knowledge of their First Amendment rights and their ability to name all three branches of the federal government have markedly increased, according to the 2020 Annenberg Constitution Day Civics Survey.

Among the highlights of the annual survey, released for Constitution Day (Sept. 17):

• Americans are much more aware of all five rights protected by the First Amendment when asked unprompted to name them;
• Nearly three-quarters of Americans (73%) correctly named freedom of speech as one of the rights guaranteed under the First Amendment, up from 48% in 2017;
• More than half of those surveyed (51%) accurately named all three branches of the federal government, up from 39% last year, the prior high point in this survey.

The civics knowledge survey by the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania was conducted among 1,009 U.S. adults from August 4-9, 2020, prior to the political conventions. It has a margin of error of ± 3.6%.

“Divided government, the impeachment process, and the number of times political leaders have turned to the courts probably deserve credit for increasing awareness of the three branches, while controversies over the right to peaceably assemble, freedom of religion, and freedom of speech may have done the same for the First Amendment,” said Annenberg Public Policy Center Director Kathleen Hall Jamieson.

MORE HERE