The University’s Polling Institute found that few Americans feel that the nation will become more united in the coming year, in a recent poll released on Tuesday, Nov. 27.
According to the report, Republicans appear to be somewhat less negative than Democrats regarding unity of the country.
The poll found that only 20 percent of the public feels that Americans are united and are on the same wavelength on some of our most important values.
These recent results contrast with a similar poll conducted last December, which found that 72 percent of participants said the nation was divided on its core values and 23 percent said the country was united.
The decline in Americans who said that the country was united shows that one of the biggest conversations going on in U.S. politics is that of the political polarization that seems to have taken a hold throughout the country.
The poll even found that 62 percent of Americans feel that the country has become more divided.
“We just held a midterm election where record high turnout demonstrated that politics matters to people. But that doesn’t mean they are particularly optimistic about what the future might hold,” said Patrick Murray, Director of the Polling Institute. “Negative opinion of American politics has not budged at all over the past year.”
Murray reported that the public continues to feel that both the president and the major political parties, are not giving enough attention to issues that Americans say affect them the most.
“Interestingly, majority of Democrats, Republicans, and independents all feel that the country is divided,” he notes.
Adrian Pacheco, a junior marketing student, said, “I feel the American people have always been at unease with the structure of our government. I feel there’s a gap in trust that drives the connection further and further.”
He explained that he believes these statistics are not given enough attention, and are not discussed as much as they should be.
According to the report, a large majority of Americans are either angry or dissatisfied with the federal government.
Vincent Miele, a junior accounting student, attributes this dissatisfaction with the current Trump administration. “The country is more divided than ever,” he said.
“It is important to bridge the differences and to find commonalities across the political spectrum,” Miele said.
Turning towards the future and what is to come in the upcoming year, the poll found that 34 percent of the public expects the country will become more divided in the coming year.
Along with only 21 percent believing it will become more united, with 40 percent feeling that not much will change in the near future.
