🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.
We just made it through our first national election since Jan. 6, 2021. Whatever we thought of the outcome, many of us who care about democracy breathed a sigh of relief. We avoided chaos. Yet as we head toward 2024, we remain a profoundly divided country in which fact reported by political opponents is treated as misinformation, and misinformation repeated by political allies is treated as fact. In short, we are still a nation at risk.
It makes sense to wonder how Americans will respond if various plausible scenarios transpire. What if there is another insurrection—but with more participants? What if a mob effort to prevent a state legislature from functioning—like those in Michigan and Oregon—gains strength and triggers a counter-reaction? What if state officials hand elections to candidates who receive fewer valid votes in 2024?
We can picture how highly engaged Americans would respond. We can be pretty sure Americans who are settled in their views and confident in their knowledge will line up with their side. Highly engaged Democrats and Republicans are roughly equal in number, and they are very likely to evaluate any conflict in a way that reflects solidarity with their co-partisans and opposition to the other party.
But highly engaged Democrats and Republicans are a relatively small slice of the public. Most people are less engaged, and millions are alienated from politics. Even if we do not have a worst-case-scenario event, the attitudes and actions of Americans who are alienated from politics could—and should—have an impact on the future of democracy. So my colleagues and I at Public Agenda wanted to know who alienated Americans are, how they see the landscape, and what they want to see change.
To find out, we developed a survey that asked Americans questions developed through political science research to identify the alienated. Following previous research, we identified respondents as alienated if they manifested three characteristics: they don't think political leaders care about their views; they don't think political leaders put the interests of the country ahead of their party; and they find it hard to understand the political process.
You might imagine people who meet these criteria as some mix of cynical and apathetic. That's not what we found.
Alienated Americans represent about 30 percent of the public. In most ways, they look like America. Whether you look at partisan identity, race, or other characteristics, there are no big differences between alienated Americans and the rest of the public. For the most part, alienated Americans are a cross-section of the American people.
Alienated Americans are not apathetic. They are worried and hungry for change. In our survey, 50 percent of Americans said our democracy is in crisis—up from 36 percent just one year ago. That number is alarmingly high, but among alienated Americans, it's even higher, at 63 percent. When we asked whether the design and structure of the American government needs to change, 48 percent of Americans said yes—including a staggering 71 percent of alienated Americans.
What did we learn from alienated Americans that can move American politics in a positive direction?
First, while polarization matters, voicelessness is central. Alienated Americans see the country as heading into dangerous territory, and they don't think anyone is listening to them. They are hungry for change because our current structures leave them out. Polarization is not irrelevant, but the polarization that matters most is the gridlock among political leaders, whom alienated Americans view as sparring with each other rather than listening to the public. These findings are consistent with previous Public Agenda research, which found that most Americans do not harbor strong negative feelings toward members of the opposing party.
Second, alienated Americans seek reforms that create opportunities for ordinary people to affect outcomes. We asked how survey participants would respond if various reforms were enacted. In response to each proposal, large numbers of Americans said they would be more likely or much more likely to get involved in the political process. In every case, alienated Americans were even more enthusiastic than the public as a whole. Reforms such as non-partisan redistricting, congressional term limits, direct election of the president, reduced barriers for third parties, mechanisms to increase ordinary Americans' influence on policy, and automatic voter registration all prompted strongly positive responses among alienated Americans.
Finally, alienated Americans represent our best opportunity to shake American politics out of its current death spiral. The changes alienated Americans support might benefit Republicans in some places and Democrats in others. They also might create opportunities for new parties and coalitions to emerge. Along the way, they would give all Americans the sense that their voices matter.
For those of us who believe in the principles undergirding the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution, that would be an excellent outcome.
Andrew J. Seligsohn is president of Public Agenda.
For the complete findings, topline, and methodology of the research discussed in this work, please visit here. You can find Andrew on Twitter at @AJSeligsohn. You can find Public Agenda here or on Twitter and Facebook at @publicagenda.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
