close
close

Association-anemone

Bite-sized brilliance in every update

Democrats and Republicans secretly agree on more than they admit
asane

Democrats and Republicans secretly agree on more than they admit

A A bartender at an upscale restaurant in South Brooklyn, Alessia Gonzalez doesn’t feel free to speak her mind at work, at least on political issues. The neighborhood, Bay Ridge, is a Republican stronghold, and customers are often dressed up MAGA hats.

Gonzalez, 27, says if she discussed her political views, particularly her belief that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in aerateshe would be judged by colleagues and clients or face even worse consequences. “I feel like I could get fired,” she says.

When it comes to politics at work, Gonzalez stays mum. “I feel the need to kind of put on a mask and not necessarily agree with them or show them any kind of support, but at the same time not express my own opinion so that I don’t make anyone uncomfortable or not to make anyone look at me differently,” she says.

Fernando, a 30-year-old from Colombia who works in advertising in New York, is much more supporter of Israeland he holds back his views on the conflict around his colleagues. He worries that a colleague, who is outspoken in her opposition to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, would have more questions than he is willing or prepared to answer. “I don’t say anything about it because my thoughts are sometimes very opposite,” says Fernando, who requested anonymity in part to protect his relationships.

Withholding real opinions, or what pollsters call “self-silencing,” appears to be widespread in the US. As part of a new studythink tank Populace and research firm YouGov conducted a survey in the US in which 58% of respondents said they believed most people were not comfortable expressing their honest opinions about sensitive issues and 61% said that in the last an she herself “avoided saying things she believed because others might find them offensive.” The study, “Social Pressure Index: Private Opinion in America,” of more than 19,000 respondents found evidence that majorities across all demographic groups — age, gender, race, income and political party — have fallen silent over the past year.

“Social norms have made it costly to express opinions that one considers controversial, and so people reject them,” says James Gibson, a professor of government at Washington University in St. Louis, who has studied public opinion for more than 40 years and was not involved in Populce’s study.

Not everyone agrees that all private opinions, no matter how objectionable, should be expressed in the public square or even at home. The old saying “no politics at the table” seems to have been around for as long as there has been politics to talk about at the table. Pushing certain views that violate basic social norms from speech it can be a powerful form of accountability and a way to shape public debate for the better. But critics of self-censorship argue that when too many people don’t say what they really think, it inhibits the vigorous public debate necessary for a healthy society. “If people self-censor, deliberation is compromised, and that’s very, very damaging, in my view, to democracy,” Gibson says. The study found that the more people kept quiet, the less they trusted others.

In the final sprint of another US presidential election season, with final polls showing Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump deadlocked, it’s clear the country is deeply divided. Public opinion experts say polarization perpetuates self-censorship by creating an environment in which the perceived costs of dissent are higher. “Your brain assumes that the loudest voices repeated the most are the majority,” said Todd Rose, CEO of Populace and a former professor at the Harvard School of Education. People fear repercussions for expressing opinions that differ from what they perceive to be the majority view. In turn, dishonest public debate makes us think we are more divided than we really are.

“Self-silencing can lead to a lot more than saying nothing,” Rose said. “It can end up leading to this place where the public consensus looks very different from the private consensus.”

But the more we know about what we actually believe, the more likely we are to meet in the middle.


America seems to be suffering from what German political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann coined in the 1970s as “spiral of silence.” Noelle-Neumann argued that people are reluctant to share their opinions on controversial topics when they subconsciously perceive that the majority disagrees with them. As a result, majority opinions come to be seen as dominant over time, shrinking the space for conversation and compromise.

In reality, we may very well agree on much more than we admit today.

One thing liberals and conservatives can secretly agree on: that they don’t trust government at all.

To try to measure people’s private opinions, the Populace researchers used what’s called a list experiment method. This involved dividing the respondents into two groups. One was presented with a series of lists each containing three statements (eg, “Class size significantly affects student achievement”). The other was presented with a series of identical lists, but with a fourth statement added—these additional statements were the ones the researchers were actually interested in testing (eg, “I support school choice in public education”). For each list, respondents were asked how many of the statements they agreed with, an indirect line of questioning designed to encourage honest responses. The researchers were then able to compare the two groups’ responses to estimate how many people actually agreed with the test statements. Finally, the researchers conducted a separate, “public” survey in which a different group of people were asked directly whether they agreed or disagreed with the test statements.

Take abortion, for example. The population found that Protestant, Roman Catholic, Jewish, and Muslim respondents in the list experiment were all more likely than comparable respondents in the public survey to support the idea that “abortion should be legal in most cases.” While only 39% of Protestants in the traditional survey agreed with this statement, Populace estimated that 54% agreed in the private structure. Among Muslims, the difference was 43% who agreed with the statement versus about 66% who privately agreed. Overall, Population found that 55 percent of respondents said publicly that abortion should be legal in most cases, compared with 63 percent who are believed to have privately agreed. (Both figures were much higher than the polls from pew and Gallupwhich included wording the question with a wider range of possible answers than the agree-disagree format of the Population study.)

Democrats and Republicans have also been more privately aligned on the issue of police funding. While 27 percent of Democratic respondents publicly agreed with the statement “I support defunding the police,” only 3 percent privately supported the move. At the same time, only 1% of Republicans supported it privately and 6% supported it publicly.

The survey also found that Republicans and wealthy people are more likely to privately feel that society is not fair than they publicly admit. Rose posited that Democrats tend to be more publicly concerned with injustice, particularly when it comes to marginalized groups. Republicans define themselves in opposition to it. That dynamic is on display in this election as, for example, former Trump attacks Harris for defending a federal law that allows government-funded gender-affirming healthcare for prisoners and migrants. But privately, they admitted they agreed. While 50 percent of Republicans publicly said “we live in a mostly fair society,” only 11 percent privately agreed.

Another thing liberals and conservatives might secretly agree on: that they don’t trust government at all. Democrats were much more likely to differ in their private and public answers on the matter: while 36 percent publicly agreed with the statement “I generally trust the government to tell me the truth,” it was estimated that only 5% privately agreed. Similarly, 2 percent of Republicans were thought to trust the government to tell the truth, while 14 percent said so publicly. Other polls have similarly found historically low levels of trust in major institutions such as government and the media across the political spectrum.

Rose is particularly concerned with low levels of trust—of the government, the media, and others. Lack of social trust causes people to resent each other, look for scapegoats and become susceptible to demagoguery, he said. “By almost any measure, social trust is a phenomenal predictor of the health and vitality of democracies,” says Rose.

Not everyone is convinced that American society is suffering from a complete collapse of societal trust. Gibson argues that the survey’s lengthy measure of whether we trust each other — agreeing with the statement that “in general, most people can be trusted” — is too vague to be accurate. “You have to build in some context to let people know what the question is. You can’t let their imagination run wild.”

Overall, certain groups — including Gen Zers, political independents and college graduates — were more likely to produce dramatically different results in public and private polls, Populace found. Gibson speculated that this may be because these groups tend to be more aware of social norms and sensitive to the costs of breaking them.

Gen Zers, 72 percent of whom said they’ve been silenced in the past year, may be influenced by their heavy use of social media, which “makes it very easy to get a false consensus,” Rose argues. They also have a keen awareness of being bullied or written off for expressing unpopular opinions. For wealthier and more educated individuals, the costs of offending customers, an audience, a fellow country club member, or a business partner could be higher. “In a society where reputation matters a lot, in an attention economy, there’s actually a lot more incentive to have opinions that are consistent with what you think people want to hear,” says Rose. The risks of social ostracism may not be as acute for people with lower incomes and those with less education, as they are often already socially and economically excluded. And ironically, the Silent Generation (born between 1928 and 1945) reported self-silencing the least.

Engaging in a public debate or even just a table discussion can be contentious and uncomfortable. But Rose and Gibson argue that the only way to build a less polarized and self-censoring society is through tough conversations.

“As we begin to find the moral courage to be honest with each other, respectfully,” says Rose, “I think you’ll see the unraveling of common ground where we can begin to anchor ourselves and try to work it out. some of the real issues we face as a country.”

However, that revelation will have to wait until after Election Day.


Eliza Relman is a policy correspondent focused on housing, transport and infrastructure in Insider’s economics team.