Public Opinion importance and accuracy today

Public opinion, as we talked discussed in class, are the political attitudes and core beliefs expressed by ordinary citizens as revealed by surveys. This is supposed to give our population a general idea of what our fellow citizens are supporting and standing by. It is supposed to give a general view of what the “common people” believe in. Public opinion has been a tool that has been used for a while now to gather this opinion. The book talks about how public opinion is considered to be very important to our democracy which is based on the rule of the people. The book claims that the government needs to hear this public opinion and act accordingly to what the people want as a condition of following this general rule and upholding our democracy. Because of this emphasis that our culture has put on public opinion, is has always been taken seriously and looked at as a main way to grasp the general beliefs of our country.

With this being said, how long will the importance and accuracy of our public opinion last? As we talked about in class, our society today is poorly informed. People today have taken a serious disinterest in what is going on with our government and the direction it is taking. It was mind blowing to hear in class that there actually is a small percentage of people that could not even answer who the president of the United States is. Whether this is due to just a lack of general interest, or due to the lack of progression and production of worthy candidates (especially in this past election), there has been a major drop off in interest and our public will continue to have this poorly informed knowledge. On top of this lack of knowledge, there is also a silent majority. In this last election, every single major poll except for one had Hillary Clinton winning the election. Because of this silent majority, which happened to be a large group of people supporting Donald Trump, the predictions were wrong. This silent majority is something that has and will continue to affect public opinion. In our society, it seems like we are becoming more and more divided by the day. Everyday seems to bring new controversial issues that people in our country vastly disagree on. Unfortunately, I do no see this getting better anytime soon. I think the country will continue to become more divided. As the country becomes more divided, our political officials will be running campaigns based off these controversial topics and because people will not want to openly support one way or another, the silent majority will continue to play a role in politics. This will also mean that political socialization will have a downfall as well. People will not be able to ever meet at common ground on anything if this country continues on the path it is going. If this is the case, will public opinion become useless?

Greenberg, Edward S, and Benjamin I. The Struggle for Democracy. New York: HarperCollins College Publishers, Print.

6 Responses to "Public Opinion importance and accuracy today"

Lauren Toth says:

October 9, 2017 at 12:58 pm

Public opinion drives change in our government and in society. In a sense public opinion is the same as majority rules. There is a strong correlation between public opinion and policy. This is until you actually take a vote. As this posts mentions, there are people who do not participate in public opinion. In order to do so, you must be somewhat active in a political sense and at least know a little what is going on. According to Pew research, 7 in 10 Americans believe they are politically active. That means that public opinion only covers 70% of American opinions. The other 30% may be part of the silent majority. These are people who are not actively expressing their opinion but still have an opinion. As mentioned in tis post, the silent majority shook the political work in the 2016 election.

The public opinion may also be skewed by ill-informed people. Pew research shows that based on the event happening, a range of 80% to 14% of people are actually informed. Some of the people who have the knowledge on the topic may also be bandwagon participants. These are people who hear one side of the story and think that it is set in stone. The relationship can be further defined by parent child relationships. Children will hear what their parents say and regurgitate the information when they are able to. While they may think this is the correct stance on the subject, if their parents are ill-informed then the child is ill informed. When it comes to public opinion, while 70% of people state that they have an opinion only a certain percentage of those people have a well informed opinion. While public opinion is a driving factor in government, we also need to take a step back and actually have votes, because the people who are outspoken may be part of the minority.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/05/02/seven-in-10-americans-politically-active-online-and-off/

http://www.pewresearch.org/2010/11/18/public-knows-basic-facts-about-politics-economics-but-struggles-with-specifics/
Hannah Dunn says:

October 9, 2017 at 4:43 pm

I agree with your assertion that the United States is slowly dividing into groups with fundamentally different core beliefs. At one extreme, Bernie Sanders wants the government to provide higher education to all young adults for free. At the other, Donald Trump attempted to close U.S. borders to certain countries based on their religious affiliation. Both groups have steadfast beliefs about the way our country, people, and economy should behave. Neither school of thought can be proven right or wrong, but their constituents hold firm to their opinions nonetheless. Because of this political divide, I can see your point about public opinion becoming obsolete. If there is no vocal majority because the nation is divided, how will the government decide what policies to choose? As of now, I do not think we are at that point. Though they may win narrowly, candidates are still elected by a majority and form their policies in response to the public mood. The framers anticipated division, as they experienced it themselves. As long as the same majority does not win every election, I think we don’t need to be concerned quite yet about the obsolescence of public opinion.
1. Hannah Dunn says:
  
  October 9, 2017 at 4:43 pm
  
  Sources for above comment:
  https://berniesanders.com/issues/its-time-to-make-college-tuition-free-and-debt-free/
  http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39044403
Lauren Rothenberg says:

October 11, 2017 at 1:09 pm

The silent majority is seemingly a threat to the functionality of our democracy however I do not agree with you that this correlates to public opinion, especially with respect to the dissolution of the significance of public opinion. The threat of the silent majority and the lack of political knowledge is far more concerning with respect to the political climate of our nation rather than the role of public opinion in our democracy. These threats do not pose an inherent risk to the necessity nor influence of public opinion. If anything, I believe the silent majority prompts a greater breadth and depth of vocalized public opinions with the hopes of advocating and advancing the popular opinion to shrink the invisible platform of the silent majority. Therefore, I do not think public opinion will become useless. Additionally, as read and discussed in class, public opinion serves more than just the role of influencing government policy and action. The role of public opinion begins by influencing potential political leaders and officials. As Key mentions, “a degree of social diversity thus may be, if not a prerequisite, at least helpful in the construction of a leadership appropriate for a democratic regime” (390). With this in mind and when considering the most recent election, the candidates advocated and built their campaigns around the economic, social and political issues made prominent in our nation via public opinion, further emphasizing the importance of public opinion in our democracy.
Brittney Morris says:

October 11, 2017 at 5:12 pm

You asked the question how long will the importance and accuracy of our public opinion last? I think that is an import question. Over the last several years the importance of public opinion has significantly declined. Our surveys and polls are becoming more inaccurate. People are concerned with the perception of their peers and will change their answers to political questions depending upon who is asking. The problem with our silent majority was apparent in our last election. People would not publicly reveal that they were voting for Donald Trump. That in itself should make us stop and think that our political system is starting to fail. People are either ashamed or embarrassed to admit who they are voting for in a presidential election, which is supposed to be the most prestigious position an individual can hold in the United States. You also mentioned the lack of general interest in politics, I think this argument is two fold. One, people are uneducated. Our education system is lacking and there is an overwhelming need for better education. There are students who are barely learning how our political system works let alone know who the individuals are that hold the positions in real life. Two, people feel our political system is broken and do not believe their opinion matters. This leads to disinterest in politics. Also people do not feel like the government is for them. The Black Lives Matter Movement is a representation of this belief. They do not believe the government is for them or representing their interests. The combination of poor/lack of education and distrusts in our government has led to the decrease in political interest and is hurting the value of public opinion. To answer your last question, I do not think public opinion will ever become useless. There will always be a chunk of educated people who are politically informed and will continue to voice there political opinions.
Colby Ritten says:

October 11, 2017 at 11:32 pm

As you talked about public opinion and how the majority of our population is mis-informed, I could not of helped but to agree. It made me question how much of the truth are linkage institutions, such as news stations and social media, actually telling us. There are a lot of things that that the media will say in order to get viewers. They want to appeal to the audience in order to get their ratings up whether they have to tell the truth or not. Also journalists are always looking for a juicy story that could bring them to the top so they will over dramatize it for there own self-interest. Another cause of fake news is the bias of each news outlet. Some institutions are seen as liberal or conservative such as CNN and Fox. It is said that while Fox leans toward the conservative side, CNN is seen as liberal. These different views, especially during elections, could lead to some bias information. Other linkage institutions such as twitter and facebook can definitely spew out fake news. In these sites, anyone can post anything even if it is completely false. So for the people that want to learn, they could form their own opinion off of false statements. For example, if I just turned 18 and wanted to vote but I was an apolitical, the last place I would want to self teach myself about the candidates running is from twitter or facebook. I could find a lot of false information about a candidate from people who are voting against that candidate, therefore turning me against them. So after thinking about all of this It really does make me think how much of the truth does our population know and how much of our public opinion is actually built from accurate news. I definitely believe that public opinion still matters but if “fake news” increases and takes up a majority of the news, later on, public opinion could be useless.

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