Americans Keep Lying to Pollsters About Their Trust in Government, Media, and Leftism . . .
by Jack Montgomery, The National Pulse.com, September 24, 2024
Research on people’s secret opinions reveals that Americans’ private views differ greatly from those they express publicly. In particular, many Americans are “self-silencing” regarding their trust in government and media, with many people who publicly claim that they trust officials and journalists to tell the truth secretly mistrusting them.
The Social Pressure Index reveals that, in public, 22 percent claim they generally “trust the government to tell me the truth.” Privately, only four percent believe this. The gap is larger among Democrats, with 36 percent publicly professing trust in government while only five percent hold this view privately.
The richer a person is, the more likely they are to pretend they trust the government, with 34 percent of those earning over $150,000—a demographic that skews Democratic—claiming they trust officials. In comparison, only three percent of high earners privately believe the government is trustworthy.
Populace and YouGov report similar findings regarding the media, with 24 percent claiming they generally “trust the media to tell me the truth,” while only seven percent believe this in private. There is again a more pronounced gap among Democrats, with 42 percent publicly claiming they trust journalists while only 9 percent privately do so.
By age group, Millennials appear to feel the most pressure to back the media, with 30 percent publicly claiming they trust journalists against four percent who do so in private.
PERFORMATIVE LEFTISM.
The research also suggests many publicly expressed far-left views are performative. For example, while 18 percent of Americans claim they support defunding the police, only two percent hold this view privately. The drop is sharpest among Generation Z, with 28 percent supporting police defunding publicly but only 2 percent supporting it privately.
Similarly, while 17 percent publicly claim they think “Americans have too much freedom,” this falls to three percent in private.
Muslims display the most remarkable contrast between their public and private opinions, with 71 percent claiming they agree there is too much freedom while only 13 percent really believe this.
The Social Pressure Index notes that 61 percent of Americans report “self-silencing” because they believe others might find their views offensive. There is majority self-silencing across all age, gender, income, political, and racial groups, with Gen Z having the highest rate of self-silencing, at 72 percent.
