SOURCE: AP/ Marco Jose Sanchez

Ray Jacques reads the San Francisco Chronicle's war special section inside a Starbucks coffee shop in San Francisco. Ten years after the invasion of Iraq, many members of the media who supported the war in 2003 are choosing not to comment.

For better or worse, the Vietnam War proved itself to be a learning experience for Americans and the U.S. government. In the military, it resulted in what became known as “The Weinberger Doctrine,” which set up a number of demanding conditions for a president to consider before committing significant numbers of troops to foreign wars. For the public, it led to the derisively termed “Vietnam Syndrome,” which combines skepticism toward the nation’s foreign policymakers with weariness about America’s often self-imposed global “policing” role in other countries.

It is unwise to rely on counterfactual history, but after the Vietnam War, it is worth examining the U.S. military’s avoidance of certain unpopular wars.  Consider, for example, the opinion conveyed by the bumper sticker “’El Salvador’ is Spanish for ‘Vietnam.’” These kind of sentiments, coupled with the military’s own desire to avoid wars that lacked strong public support, prevented U.S. proxy wars in Central America, southern Africa, and possibly the Middle East—at least for a little while.

In many respects, former President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq was an even greater catastrophe than Vietnam—one that is even less morally and intellectually defensible. And yet, as a nation, we appear to have learned virtually nothing this time around. As Peter Baker noted in The New York Times, “a conspiracy of silence” surrounded the recently observed 10th anniversary of the invasion. “Republicans and Democrats agreed that they did not really want to talk about the Iraq war,” wrote Baker.

This past month, the media has sought out some of the war’s most vocal supporters to reflect on lessons learned, if any, from their errors 10 years ago. A small percentage of the war hawks who originally supported the invasion sought to defend their initial views. An even smaller group apologized for their errors. But the overwhelming tendency among these formerly loquacious pundits and ex-officials was to change the subject away from the war itself. Read, for instance, George Packer’s 10th-anniversary essay in The New Yorker or Paul Berman’s in The New Republic or Kenneth Pollack’s interview featured in Ezra Klein’s column on Bloomberg.com to see if you can determine whether these one-time armchair warriors were expressing regret, or attempting to excuse their own lack of judgment. I sure couldn’t.

Then again, why should they reconsider? It’s not as if anyone—with the possible exception of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Bush—paid any kind of professional price for their colossal errors regarding Iraq. Certainly nobody’s career was hurt by the inaccuracy of rosy predictions about the war. Indeed, the opposite proved true: The Weekly Standard’s William Kristol perhaps predicted the outcome of the war most inaccurately, and yet he ended up with opinion columns in Time magazine and on the op-ed page of The New York Times. Once the war’s failure became clear, it’s as if the entire mainstream media decided to adopt the sentiments expressed by the liberal Washington Post pundit Richard Cohen, borrowed from the French ex-Stalinist Pierre Courtade: “You and your kind were wrong to be right; we were right to be wrong.”

Upon rereading their prewar arguments, one can understand the liberal pundits’ desire to change the subject 10 years later rather than revisit their fallacious arguments, or try to draw larger lessons from their mistakes. The liberal hawks—almost exclusively men—became men of ideas wanting to be men of action. They embraced what the historian Christopher Lasch called “the anti-intellectualism of the intellectuals”—to be bold, to reject doubt, and to fight with ideas rather than guns.

Instead of careful cost-benefit analyses of invading Iraq, these intellectual war hawks gave us airy phrases that did not address the actual difficulties the United States was likely to face in Iraq after the initial fighting was over. Many preferred to focus on what the war would do for America’s self-regard as a nation. When the twin towers went down in 2001, the liberal journalist George Packer began a collected set of essays called “The Fight is for Democracy.” Ten years later, he reminisced about his first thoughts after 9/11: “Maybe this will make us better.”

Packer and other liberal hawks, including Michael Ignatieff, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Cohen, David Rieff, Roger Cohen, and Jacob Weisberg, gained popularity in the media despite a gap in their lack of military experience. Indeed, none possessed any particular professional expertise on military strategy, Iraqi society, or the Arab world more generally. They saw their own ideas, as the neoconservative writer Jacob Heilbrunn would write, “as weapons in a moral struggle.”

Indeed, most liberal hawks gave little thought to the Bush administration’s ability to carry out the complicated tasks that would follow the relatively simple task of facing a badly armed third-world military force in open battle. Apparently they expected the postwar reconstruction of Iraqi governance and civil society to take care of itself. The hawks flattered themselves that they knew bigger, more important things than such trivial details. Author and journalist Christopher Hitchens made this plain in his 2010 memoir, when he casually observed that he and his comrades “rather tended to assume that things of [the] more practical sort were being taken care of.”

That’s as far as they got before making assertions and statements about why we needed to go to war. Now take a look at this chart to see where the war ultimately got us. The Vietnam War led to many tragic results, but at least it briefly taught the United States that wars in far-off nations were not endeavors to be taken lightly, or without an understanding of the culture we were seeking to reform—at least until 2003.

Many of the same people who treated the cautionary signals regarding Iraq so blithely 10 years ago now appear to be agitating for yet another adventure, this time in Iran. It would behoove us to ensure that we focus on the lessons of that catastrophe before embarking on yet another one. This time it won’t do to merely change the subject.

Eric Alterman is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and a CUNY distinguished professor of English and journalism at Brooklyn College. He is also “The Liberal Media” columnist for The Nation. His most recent book is The Cause: The Fight for American Liberalism from Franklin Roosevelt to Barack Obama.

SOURCE: AP/Damian Dovarganes

Students Zoe Bell, 12, left, and her sister, Sophie, 9, join Los Angeles-area clergy, religious leaders, and citizens in an interfaith candlelight prayer vigil to end to gun violence outside Los Angeles City Hall, Wednesday, December 19, 2012.

Endnotes and citations are available in the PDF version of this issue brief.

For years the conventional wisdom has said that “gun control” is a deeply polarizing and divisive issue and that support for stronger gun laws has been declining. In the wake of the December shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, however, a wealth of new data challenges this conventional wisdom. First, public opinion has shifted significantly. By many measures, support for stronger gun laws has substantially increased. Second, signs of an emerging national consensus on many gun issues—which was actually developing prior to the Newtown shooting—are also evident.

In this issue brief—co-authored by a bipartisan team of pollsters who have each conducted public-opinion research on attitudes toward guns in recent years—we hope to set the record straight and provide tools for polling outlets and reporters going forward. We’ll focus on three key points:

• Newtown changed the debate. The Newtown shooting had a greater impact on public opinion about guns than any other event in the past two decades—and led to a clear rise in public support for stronger gun laws. In particular, three aspects about public opinion in the wake of Newtown are notable:
• Near unanimous support for universal background checks and clear majority support for high-capacity magazine and assault-weapons bans
• Almost as much support for stronger gun laws among gun owners as among the general public
• A large gender gap in views on guns and violence
• Much of the pre-Newtown polling missed emerging trends of Americans’ views on gun issues. Even before the Newtown shooting, Americans were less divided than some polling suggested because much of the polling contained the following three kinds of errors, omissions, or oversights:
• Overly broad questions on gun views failed to capture nuances in public opinion
• Outdated policy questions about guns missed the current debate
• Outdated language to describe gun issues failed to capture voter attitudes
• There is an emerging consensus on guns among the American public. Most Americans agree that handguns should not be banned, that more needs to be done to keep guns away from dangerous people, and that military-style weapons don’t belong on the streets.

Below, we look at these key points in more detail.

Newtown changed the debate

Most public polling on guns is conducted in the aftermath of a mass shooting, so it can be difficult to parse out what is a post-shooting reaction and what is the more stable public opinion. But the Newtown shooting has changed public opinion on guns in ways that the shootings at Columbine High School, Virginia Tech University, and in Tucson, Arizona, did not.

Americans across demographic groups report that Newtown has changed their views. In a January Washington Post/ABC News poll, a majority of Americans—52 percent—say they are now “more likely to support some forms of gun control,” with twice as many—35 percent—”much more likely” than “somewhat more likely”—17 percent. Even 44 percent of Republicans and 43 percent of Americans in gun-owning households said that they are more likely to support some stronger gun laws. Only a handful of voters overall—5 percent—say that they are less likely to support stronger gun laws. (see Figure 1)

Likewise, in each polling outlets’ broad-climate questions, support for stronger gun laws increased in the immediate aftermath of Newtown and continues to increase a month or more later. Gallup, for example, typically asks a three-pronged question: Should laws be “more strict, less strict, or kept as they are now?” Other outlets have a similar formulation. This version of the question has shown a decline in “more strict” responses over the years, but those numbers have recently stabilized. In the wake of Newtown, support for stricter laws has jumped more than at any time in the last two decades. (see Figure 2)

And though the National Rifle Association, or NRA, may be waiting for the “Connecticut effect” to dissipate, support for stronger gun laws remains high, with many polls showing majority support for stricter gun laws a month—and in some cases nearly two months—after Newtown. In fact, some public opinion research suggests that support for stronger gun laws has not only maintained its post-Newtown bump but also that support is continuing to rise.

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that in mid-January, a month after Newtown, 56 percent of Americans supported “stricter” gun laws, as opposed to the 35 percent who wanted laws kept as they are and the 7 percent who wanted laws weakened. Two months after Newtown the same poll showed that support for stricter laws had increased to 61 percent, with only 4 percent of Americans favoring weaker laws and 34 percent wanting current laws to be maintained.

There is near unanimous support for keeping guns out of dangerous hands

When pollsters drill down to particular policy proposals, almost all voters want to keep guns out of dangerous hands. In every poll where these measures are tested, support for appropriate measures is strong and consistent—and transcends party lines.

Background checks: Voters support criminal background checks of essentially all kinds—for every gun purchase, at gun shows, for ammunition, and others. Support for these proposals is nearly unanimous—and has been in every poll we’ve seen. There is also nearly unanimous support for specific measures to keep felons, the mentally ill, drug abusers, those with arrests for domestic violence, and those on the government’s terrorist watch list from purchasing guns.

High-capacity magazines and assault weapons: A smaller but a consistent majority of voters supports bans on high-capacity magazines, assault weapons, and other perceived safety threats. The major pieces of President Barack Obama’s package requiring congressional approval—a ban on high-capacity magazines and assault weapons—are more popular than media coverage would suggest. A ban on high-capacity magazines is consistently popular with a majority of voters. Results have fluctuated little over the decades of public polling—between majority support and two-thirds support. In the January Washington Post/ABC News poll, 59 percent of Republicans say they supported such a ban. The only stronger gun law currently being discussed that has occasionally received less than majority support is an assault-weapons ban, but that proposal usually receives majority support. On average, support for a high-capacity magazine ban exceeds support for an assault-weapons ban by five points.

Table 1 below shows recent results across polling outlets for some of these proposals. For full question wording and polling methodology, please see the endnotes.

Support for action is high even among gun owners

Polling shows that support for strong gun measures is high among gun owners. Support for requiring criminal background checks for all gun sales—no matter who the seller is or where the location of the sale is—receives not only near-universal support among the general public but also among gun owners. (see Table 2)

On other policy questions, a gap between the opinions of the overall public and gun owners develops—but perhaps not as wide as one might expect. On the question of assault weapons, for example, a December Pew Research Center poll found that about two-thirds (65 percent) of Americans think, “allowing citizens to own assault weapons makes the country more dangerous.” Half (50 percent) of those in a gun-owning household agree. Likewise, while a February Quinnipiac poll shows that 56 percent of Americans support bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, support among gun owners trails 12 points and 11 points behind, respectively.

Perhaps most troubling for NRA leadership is that a majority of respondents—61 percent—in a recent Gallup poll say that the NRA does not reflect gun owners’ views on guns. Even in gun-owning households, 49 percent of respondents say that the NRA reflects their views “only sometimes/never,” while 50 percent of respondents answer “always/most of the time.” The NRA’s distance from gun owners suggests the organization is out of touch with its own constituency. And voters agree. A February Public Policy Polling poll shows that 39 percent of Americans said that the NRA’s support would make them less likely to support a candidate for office, while only 26 percent said the NRA’s support would make them more likely to support a candidate.

An important gender gap

With women voters increasingly crucial to electoral success, a gender gap on guns means the issue can drive the political dialogue. Women are more supportive of stronger gun laws broadly and more likely to support specific proposals. The gender gap transcends party affiliation.

In the wake of Newtown, CBS News and The New York Times, Public Policy Polling, and the Pew Research Center each show a double-digit gender gap in support of stronger gun laws, with approximately 6 in 10 women supporting such a change. Both Pew and Gallup tracking suggest that this gender gap dates back to the 1990s.

The gap pervades every proposal tested. The mid-January Washington Post/ABC News poll showed that support for a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines runs 16 points and 15 points higher, respectively, among women than it does among men. Pew shows a similar result. In fact, both polls show majorities of women support every single specific stronger gun law tested, aside from arming teachers. (For more on this gender gap, see this piece by co-author Margie Omero.)

While conventional wisdom may say that the NRA is a well-liked organization, that is simply not true among women. In mid-January the Washington Post/ABC News poll showed men slightly favorable toward the “NRA leadership,” while women were unfavorable by a nearly 2-1 ratio. Similarly, Public Policy Polling found women unfavorable to the group even before the December press conference in which NRA CEO and Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre defended guns and called for more armed guards in schools as a response to reducing gun violence.

Furthermore, a February 2013 bipartisan poll of women voters for the Women Donors Network—conducted by co-authors Bob Carpenter and Diane Feldman—showed the NRA to be the least influential person or group on women’s views on guns. Even women in NRA-member households rated parents and “women like themselves” more highly as spokespersons than they rated the NRA.

One likely driver of this gender gap is women’s concern about violence in their communities. After Newtown, both the Washington Post/ABC News poll and Gallup showed that about 6 in 10 women worried about a mass shooting, compared to less than half of men. And the Women Donors Network survey cited above showed that women were concerned about a broader culture of violence—and that 23 percent of likely voting women had themselves been a victim of physical violence or physical abuse or had a family member who was a victim.

Missing the emerging consensus: Three problems with the pre-Newtown polling

The Newtown shooting has changed Americans’ views on guns, but there is reason to suspect that support for action was stronger before Newtown than major polling outlets and the resulting media coverage suggested. Too much of the pre-Newtown polling suffered from three kinds of problems:

• Over-reliance on broad, overall “climate” questions, with too few policy drilldowns
• Over-reliance on outdated policy questions
• Over-reliance on the outdated phrase “gun control”

Over-reliance on broad, overall “climate” questions

Some standard questions on views toward gun laws are overly broad and point to inconsistent conclusions.

One of the most consistent findings in gun polling is that support for “gun control” broadly is lower than support for specific tighter gun laws. One reason is the lack of specificity in broad “gun climate” questions. What do respondents think of when asked whether they support “gun control” or “stricter laws covering the sale of firearms”? Are they thinking about a ban on all guns, including hunting rifles? Are they thinking about preventing people accused of domestic violence from getting a gun at a gun show without a background check and then bringing that gun across state lines? We simply don’t know. This is not to say that a broad question on attitudes toward gun laws can’t be useful, but we should simply understand its limitations.

One challenge is interpreting the results in the current policy context. Even though polling outlets structure their broad climate questions differently, they consistently show support for some sort of restrictions on guns. The CNN/ORC poll shows that about three-fourths of Americans want to see at least minor restrictions on guns. (see Figure 4) And the three-pronged climate questions asked by most outlets consistently show hardly any support for making gun laws “less strict.” (see Figure 2) Yet before the Newtown shooting, the NRA, the American Legislative Exchange Council, and others were indeed fighting for less strict gun laws, inching us closer to the “no restrictions” end of the spectrum.

Furthermore, while it’s true that prior to Newtown support for stronger gun laws had declined from the 1990s, in all broad climate questions, support for specific policies remains high.

The table below shows the degree to which support for specific policies exceeds support for the generic notion of “stricter gun laws.”

Over-reliance on outdated policy questions

In 2008 the Supreme Court held in the landmark District of Columbia v. Heller case that the Second Amendment guaranteed an individual the right to own a handgun in their home for self-defense. The ruling made clear that this right was subject to reasonable regulation, but it also meant that a complete ban on handguns was off the table. In fact, long before the 2008 decision, no serious national politicians and very few local elected officials were advocating banning handguns. But that didn’t stop some polling outfits from asking questions about support for handgun bans.

Between the Columbine High School massacre in April 1999 and its most recent post-Newtown poll, Gallup asked Americans about support for a ban on handguns 13 times. Over that period support for such a policy dropped from 38 percent to a record-low 24 percent in December 2012. That drop in support preceded the landmark 2008 Supreme Court Heller decision but accelerated after the Supreme Court ruled that such a policy was constitutionally impermissible. Gallup kept asking this question even though no legislation to ban handguns was introduced in Congress—let alone debated—at any time during the period.

In the wake of Columbine and over the past 14 years, the policy perhaps most debated and prioritized by advocates for stronger gun laws is closing the loophole at gun shows or completely closing the private-party-sale background-check loophole. This policy was seriously debated in states—a number of which adopted this measure—and in Congress, where it was voted on in 1999 and 2004 and received more co-sponsors in recent years than any other gun-law-strengthening measure. But Gallup has asked about closing gun-sale background loopholes just three times since 1999: once two months before Columbine, when it received 83 percent support; once a few months after Columbine, when it received 87 percent support; and then again in December 2012, when support rose to 92 percent. This near-universal support for universal background checks is consistent with other public polls, as seen in Table 1.

Over-reliance on the outdated phrase “gun control”

Advocates for stronger gun laws have long abandoned the word “control.” No national group currently advocating for stronger gun laws currently uses the word. The group called Handgun Control changed its name to The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence more than a decade ago. And more recently the group Million Moms for Gun Control changed their name to Moms Demand Action. No poll commissioned by a gun-law group includes the word. Internal polling in 2011 for a group working for stronger gun laws showed “gun control groups” receiving weaker ratings than “gun violence prevention groups.”

“Control” has been dropped for a reason: It is aggressive rather than neutral. It sounds as if “control” alone is the objective, and it helps paint the incorrect picture of government “coming for” one’s guns. And you’d be hard pressed to think of another set of laws that uses the word. Despite all this, “control” remains in the common vernacular.

Looking at the exact question wording in every outlet’s version of the three-pronged broader climate gun question—should laws be made more strict, less strict, or kept the same—only CBS News/New York Times and the Los Angeles Times use the phrase “gun control” in the question. Other outlets use “sale of firearms” or similar wording. And the CBS News/New York Times and Los Angeles Times results consistently show lower “more strict” support than the other outlets. It’s certainly possible that there are house effects at work, in which the CBS News/New York Times and Los Angeles Times polling methodology are consistently and similarly different from the other outlets, but this pattern has been evident since 1999, the earliest year for which data are available for comparison.

Simply using the phrase “gun laws” or “stronger gun laws” is a neutral, appropriate phrase, and it should be part of all public polling and public discussion going forward.

In Pew’s question, respondents are asked, “Which is more important, to control gun ownership, or protect gun rights?”, as if controlling gun ownership is its own goal—as opposed to, quite obviously, reducing gun violence—in the way that protecting gun rights is its own goal. Even in this question, however, support for “controlling gun ownership” has stabilized in the last few years and—after Newtown—now exceeds support for protecting gun owners’ rights.

The real frame for a broader gun-climate question should ask respondents to choose between gun rights on the one hand and reducing gun violence on the other. Yet only internal polling for gun-law advocates has this frame in its wording.

Widespread, stable support for a common ground on guns

There is clear consensus around a variety of common-sense gun laws, as well as consensus around what limits are unacceptable. Congress is fighting over questions that are simply not controversial.

The common ground is centered on the following two ideas:

• Responsible law-abiding Americans have a right to own guns.
• Much more needs to be done to keep dangerous guns from dangerous people.

Pollsters have too often asked questions that present these two ideas as opposing; the vast majority of Americans view these concepts as consistent and complementary.

Americans overwhelmingly agree with the Supreme Court that the Second Amendment protects the rights of individual Americans to own a gun. While the wording varies slightly across outlets, the results are consistent. About three-fourths of voters feel the Constitution protects all—or most—Americans’ rights to own a gun, not just the rights of militias. And despite gun-lobby histrionics, there is no mandate in the public or among policymakers to “attack” the Second Amendment.

Americans also agree that much more ought to be done to keep dangerous guns from dangerous people. In July 2012 polling for Mayors Against Illegal Guns, Republican pollster Frank Luntz found that 87 percent of NRA members and 83 percent of non-NRA gun owners agree that, “Support for Second Amendment rights go hand-in-hand with keeping illegal guns out of the hands of criminals.” And in 2009 Luntz polling—also for Mayors Against Illegal Guns—found that 86 percent of NRA and 86 percent of non-NRA member gun owners agree with the following statement: “We can do more to stop criminals from getting guns while also protecting the rights of citizens to freely own them.”

The American voter’s penchant for balance and compromise extends to gun laws. Across lines of gun ownership, gender, and party, there is more support for some stronger laws than the status quo. Only a careful read of the polling identifies the fault lines that invariably exist, along with the common ground that also exists just as assuredly.

The authors of this paper are principals at public opinion research and strategic consulting firms. Margie Omero is president of Momentum Analysis. Bob Carpenter is president of Chesapeake Beach Consulting. Michael Bocian is a founding partner at GBA Strategies. Diane Feldman is president of The Feldman Group, Inc. Linda DiVall is founder and CEO of American Viewpoint. Douglas Schoen is a Democratic campaign consultant. Celinda Lake and Joshua Ulibarri are president and partner of Lake Research. Al Quinlan is president of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. Arkadi Gerney is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.

SOURCE: AP/Mel Evans

With Ellis Island in the background, a group of immigrant rights advocates march on Wednesday, February 13, 2013, in Liberty State Park, Jersey City, New Jersey.

This Valentine’s Day—a day that we should all be showing love and compassion for one another—there are many ways that we can be respectful of one another’s beliefs and rights. Though issues such as immigration, reproductive rights, gun-violence protection, and marriage equality are controversial, many more Americans now agree than disagree on such topics.

Upon the review of several polls, it’s clear that there are plenty of things about which a majority of Americans feel good. Below is a diverse list of a number of the latest public opinion polls covering issues from immigration to gun-violence prevention—issues that, as it turns out, foster far more agreement than debate, despite the largely partisan rhetoric emanating lately from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Immigration

1. Gallup: Americans widely support immigration reform proposals

Gallup published a poll on February 5 showing strong support for many immigration reform proposals. A vast majority of respondents—72 percent—were in favor of a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants if they meet certain requirements, while 71 percent wanted to increase the number of visas available to immigrants who have advanced skills in science and technology. Breaking down the responses by party affiliation, a majority of Republicans, Democrats, and independents would like to see these reforms.

2. America’s Voice: More than 6 in 10 Americans see immigration as a “good thing”

A poll released by America’s Voice on January 18 found strong support not only for immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship but also for immigration itself. More than 6 in 10 Americans believe that immigration is a good thing for America, including 63 percent of whites, 70 percent of blacks, and 69 percent of Latinos. Additionally, more than 73 percent of respondents were in favor of a pathway to citizenship, compared to only 22 percent who favored deportation.

3. CNN/ORC International: A majority of Americans think the government should prioritize integrating immigrants rather than deporting them

CNN released a poll on January 22 showing that a majority of Americans—53 percent—think the main focus of the federal government should not be deportation—rather, it should be to develop a plan that would allow undocumented immigrants to become legal residents. This is a switch from 2011, when 55 percent of Americans said that the government should prioritize deportation and stopping undocumented immigrants from entering the country. Americans now not only see immigration as a good thing, but they also think that the government should devote more resources to providing a pathway to citizenship for our immigrant population.

Reproductive rights

4. Pew Research Center: A majority of men, women, blacks, and whites support Roe v. Wade

A report published by the Pew Forum on Religious & Public Life on January 16 found broad support for upholding the Supreme Court’s decision in its landmark case, Roe v. Wade, which recognized a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion. A full 63 percent of men—along with 64 percent of women, 66 percent of whites, and 67 percent of blacks—said the decision should not be overturned.

5. NBC News/Wall Street Journal: A majority of Americans feel “strongly” that Roe v. Wade not be overturned

NBC News and The Wall Street Journal released a poll on January 22 revealing that 70 percent of Americans do not think that Roe v. Wade should be overturned. Of all those asked, 57 percent said that they “felt strongly” about upholding the 1973 Supreme Court decision.

Gun-violence prevention

6. Pew Research Center: A majority of Americans agree that certain regulations are needed to prevent gun violence

A Pew Research Center poll released on December 20, 2012, found that 65 percent of Americans—including majorities of both blacks and whites—believe that allowing citizens to own assault weapons makes the country more dangerous. A majority of Americans are also in favor of banning bullets designed to explode or penetrate bulletproof vests (56 percent) and banning high-capacity ammunition clips (53 percent). The results of the poll indicate that there is widespread approval for regulations that would prevent gun violence.

7. Survey USA: Parents with children at home agree that easy access to guns contributes to violence

Common Sense Media and the Center for American Progress commissioned Survey USA to conduct a nationwide poll of parents with children under the age of 18. The poll, released on January 7, asked parents what they believe causes violence in society. While three-fourths of parents said that shielding children from violence is difficult, the same share also agreed that easy access to guns contributes to violence in the United States. A majority of all ethnic and racial groups agreed that easy access to guns promoted gun violence in their communities.

8. Washington Post/ABC News Poll: A majority of Americans are in favor of President Obama’s proposal to prevent gun violence

The results of a poll conducted by The Washington Post and ABC News revealed that 53 percent of all adults have a “favorable impression” of President Obama’s proposed gun-violence prevention measures. The poll, released on February 8, also found that 50 percent of registered voters, 56 percent of college graduates, and 51 percent of Independent voters were in favor of the president’s proposal. There was also strong support among communities of color: 83 percent of blacks and 68 percent of Latinos said they agreed with President Obama’s plan.

Marriage equality

9. CBS News and Pew Research Center/NBC/WSJ: A strong majority of young Americans and a growing number of people of color support marriage equality

A CBS News poll published on November 30 found that among all those Americans ages 18 to 29, 72 percent say that same-sex marriage should be legal and that same-sex couples should be afforded the same rights as traditional married couples. Marriage equality also finds growing support among communities of color: Support for marriage equality has risen 13 points—from 26 percent to 39 percent—among blacks since 1996. Among Latinos, support for marriage equality has risen from 45 percent to 55 percent just since 2009.

10. USA Today/Gallup: Most Americans support legalizing marriage for same-sex couples

USA Today and Gallup jointly released a poll on December 5showing that in addition to strong support for marriage equality among young people, a majority of Americans—53 percent—believes that same-sex marriage should be legal and that same-sex couples should be afforded the same rights as traditional married couples. This is a significant increase from eight years ago, when support for marriage equality stood at 42 percent, and from 1996, when it stood at 27 percent.

Any healthy democracy is home to a wide variety of ideas and opinions, but the polls discussed above show that even in this year’s most heated debates, broad agreement can still be found. On a day we typically spend sharing our love and compassion with others, here’s to also sharing attitudes that are moving us toward a stronger and better America.

Morriah Kaplan is an intern with Progress 2050 at the Center for American Progress.

• Raise tax rates on those who can afford it.
• Don’t raise the Medicare or Social Security eligibility ages.
• Don’t cut spending in critical areas such as education, transportation, and aid to the poor.

In the Pew poll, an overwhelming majority (69 percent to 28 percent) said we should raise the income tax rate on those making $250,000 or more to help close the deficit. The public also endorsed raising the tax rate on investment income by 52 percent to 43 percent.

The same poll showed the public opposed raising the Medicare eligibility age (56 percent to 41 percent) or the Social Security eligibility age (56 percent to 42 percent).

Finally, the public massively opposed reducing federal funding for education to reduce the deficit by a margin of 77 percent to 21 percent. They also opposed reducing federal funding for roads and transportation (67 percent to 30 percent) and opposed reducing federal funding for low-income assistance programs (58 percent to 38 percent).

The solution to the fiscal showdown is not yet clear. But the public’s priorities on that solution are. Let’s hope policymakers are paying attention.

Ruy Teixeira is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.

In a postelection Democracy Corps Economy Media Project poll, the public supported:

• Spending $55 billion over the next three years on rehiring teachers and modernizing schools (65 percent to 30 percent)
• Enacting a one-year, $53 billion tax rebate for low- and middle-income households to offset the expiring payroll tax cuts (56 percent to 33 percent)
• Restoring 99 weeks of emergency unemployment benefits over the next three years (52 percent to 41 percent)
• Investing $234 billion in infrastructure, along with creating an infrastructure bank (51 percent to 43 percent)

Conservatives may be allergic to spending on the unemployed and our social needs but the public clearly is not. Let’s hope conservative policymakers in our nation’s capital remember that fact as the fiscal showdown heats up.

Ruy Teixeira is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.

The first: It’s time to raise taxes on the rich. In the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, the public supported the idea of raising taxes on those with annual incomes of more than $250,000 by a thumping 60 percent to 37 percent majority.

The second: Raising the Medicare eligibility age is a no-no. In the same poll, the public rejected the idea of raising the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67 by an overwhelming 67 percent to 30 percent margin.

The public’s sentiments couldn’t be clearer. Let’s hope that despite the haste to cut a deal, policymakers give these sentiments the careful consideration they deserve.

Ruy Teixeira is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.

This is the finding in the new Kaiser Health Tracking poll, conducted just after the election. In that poll, 49 percent of respondents wanted to either expand the Affordable Care Act (27 percent) or keep it as is (22 percent). Just 33 percent wanted to either repeal it and replace with a Republican alternative (14 percent) or repeal it without a replacement (19 percent). In July of this year, however, the split was almost even (45 percent to 46 percent) between these two broad alternatives.

And some important groups are even more opposed than the public at large to repealing Obamacare. An election eve poll of Latino voters by Latino Decisions for ImpreMedia showed this quite clearly. The poll asked Latino voters whether Obamacare should be left to stand as law or be repealed. By an overwhelming 61 percent to 25 percent margin, they said Obamacare should continue as law.

Conservatives are not getting many buyers for their plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Maybe they should just accept that Obamacare is here to stay and that the public is OK with that.

Ruy Teixeira is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.

Some of the best information comes from a Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research postelection poll conducted for Democracy Corps and the Campaign for America’s Future. In that survey voters were asked to choose the biggest priority after the election: growing the economy or a plan to reduce the budget deficit. By an overwhelming 62 percent to 30 percent margin, voters put growth over deficit reduction.

Voters also have some very clear preferences about how to reach a deal on deficit reduction. According to those surveyed, the most unacceptable methods to cut the deficit are:

• Capping Medicare payments and forcing seniors to pay more (79 percent of respondents said this was unacceptable)
• Requiring deep cuts in domestic programs without protecting programs for children and education (75 percent)
• Cutting discretionary spending such as education, child nutrition, worker training, and disease control (72 percent)
• Not raising taxes on the rich (68 percent)
• Lowering top tax rates for the rich and corporations (67 percent)
• Continuing to tax investors’ income at lower rates than workers’ pay (63 percent)
• Reducing Social Security benefits over time by having them rise more slowly than the cost of living (62 percent)

There’s a message there, and a powerful one at that, if policymakers care to listen.

Ruy Teixeira is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.

Well, conservatives may believe devoutly in YOYO economics, but the public is definitely not on their side. Consider these findings from the Public Religion Research Institute’s just-released 2012 American Values Survey. In that survey, the public was asked whether the primary cause of America’s problems is an economic system that results in continuing inequality and poverty. By a margin of 62 percent to 35 percent, respondents agreed that inequality and poverty are systemic problems in our society.

In the same poll, the public was asked whether government policies help the poor by providing a safety net to help them get back on their feet or whether these policies create a culture of dependency by providing handouts. By an almost 2-to-1 ratio (63 percent to 32 percent), respondents backed the positive view of the safety net over the negative one.

YOYO economics may warm the hearts of conservatives, but for the public, it looks like a nonstarter.

Ruy Teixeira is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.

In that survey, the public was asked whether they supported increasing taxes on those making more than $250,000 a year. By an overwhelming 61 percent to 36 percent margin, respondents said they did.

And in the same survey, there is even more of a shocker for conservative sensibilities: The public does not embrace conservatives’ other sacred cause of repealing the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. According to the survey, the public opposes repeal by a 49 percent to 41 percent margin.

Perhaps conservatives should look for some other sacred causes to embrace. If they’re interested in public support, that is.

Ruy Teixeira is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.

A recent CNN/ORC poll, for example, asked respondents what the main focus of government policy should be in dealing with this issue. By a 56 percent to 39 percent margin, the public favored developing a plan that would allow undocumented immigrants who have jobs to become legal U.S. residents over developing a plan to stop the flow of unauthorized immigrants and deporting those already here.

Similarly, in an August Washington Post/Kaiser poll, 61 percent of respondents thought undocumented immigrants working and living in the United States should be offered a chance to keep their jobs and apply for legal status, compared to just 35 percent who thought these immigrants should be deported back to their native countries.

Conservatives may be fixated on deportation, but the public clearly isn’t. Instead, the vast majority of Americans want to give legalization a chance.

Ruy Teixeira is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.

Take the idea that our current economic problems can be laid at President Obama’s door. Not so, says the public. Fifty-four percent of the poll’s respondents believed former President George W. Bush deserves the lion’s share of the blame, while just 32 percent thought President Obama is more responsible for these problems.

In the same poll, 56 percent of respondents thought unfairness in our economic system favoring the wealthy is a bigger problem for our country. Just 34 percent saw overregulation of the free market as a bigger problem.

Conservatives can insist all they want that President Obama and interference with the free market are the root of all evil. But the public clearly disagrees.

Ruy Teixeira is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.

In the latest Kaiser Health Tracking poll, the public—by a 59 percent–37 percent margin—favored continuing Medicare as it is today, with the government guaranteeing the same set of health benefits, over giving seniors a fixed amount of money to purchase either a private health plan or traditional Medicare.

Even more overwhelmingly, in the latest CBS News/New York Times poll, 78 percent of respondents favored continuing Medicare as it is today. Just 14 percent supported changing Medicare to a system where the government gives seniors a fixed amount on money to purchase health insurance.

It seems highly improbable at this point that the public is going to change its mind about voucherizing Medicare. The idea started out unpopular and is only continuing to lose support. Smart conservatives should start looking around for another big idea because this one is going nowhere.

Ruy Teixeira is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.

The latest example comes from a CBS News/New York Times poll taken earlier this month. In that poll, 51 percent of respondents thought it should be legal for same-sex couples to marry, compared to 41 percent who thought it shouldn’t.

Similarly, in a mid-August AP/National Constitution Center poll, 53 percent of respondents said government should give legal recognition to same-sex marriages, compared to 42 percent saying it should not.

This majority support for marriage equality is now the norm. And judging from trends of the last several years, we should expect these majorities to grow smartly throughout the decade.

Ruy Teixeira is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.

But perhaps that’s not true. Recent data suggest the public, unlike conservatives, thinks that the stimulus—whatever its flaws might have been—played an important role in keeping the economy from getting far worse than it did. In a new United Technologies/National Journal poll, respondents were given a description of the stimulus program—from the standpoint of both its supporters and its detractors—and asked how much they’d heard or seen about the program. Almost all (85 percent) had heard at least something about the stimulus.

Those who had heard at least something about the stimulus program were then asked whether the stimulus was the right or wrong thing to do for the country. A solid majority (55 percent) thought the stimulus program was the right thing to do.

Evidently the public doesn’t have as much trouble as conservatives seeing the good the stimulus program did. In the public’s view, the stimulus may not have been perfect, but it was integral to helping our economy get back on track.

Ruy Teixeira is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.

A recent Washington Post/Kaiser poll asked respondents their views on various ways of reducing the deficit. By an overwhelming 65-33 margin, they favored raising taxes on households earning $250,000 or more as a way of reducing the deficit.

But respondents’ views were quite different on reducing Social Security or Medicare benefits. They opposed these approaches to deficit reduction by an 82-17 margin and a 77-21 margin respectively.

The public’s views could not be clearer: Tax cuts for the rich are on the table; cutting Social Security and Medicare are not. End of story.

Ruy Teixeira is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. To learn more about his public opinion analysis, go to the Media and Progressive Values page and the Progressive Studies program page of our website.

In a just-released ABC/Washington Post poll, the public favored by a wide margin (52-33) spending money on projects such as roads, bridges, and technology development over cutting taxes as a way of creating jobs.

And in an early August Washington Post/Kaiser poll, more spending on roads, bridges, and public works projects was the most popular of five choices offered to respondents on how to address the job situation in the country. By an overwhelming 63-13 margin, the public thought such spending would help rather than hurt the job situation.

Conservatives’ knee-jerk hostility to government spending (except on the military) is clearly out of step with today’s job-hungry public.

Ruy Teixeira is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. To learn more about his public opinion analysis, go to the Media and Progressive Values page and the Progressive Studies program page of our website.

Last week we also received new polling on the issue and, as expected, the public continues to support keeping Medicare as it is today. Let’s start with their general support for keeping Medicare (or Social Security) benefits as they are: By 51 percent to 33 percent in a new Pew poll, the public thinks this goal is more important than taking steps to reduce the budget deficit.

Moving on to the specific plan to turn Medicare into a voucher, the plan was tested by the recently released Washington Post/Kaiser poll. Respondents were given two choices: A) Medicare should continue as it is today, with the government guaranteeing all seniors the same set of health insurance benefits, or B) Medicare should be changed to a system in which the government guarantees each senior a fixed amount of money to help them purchase coverage either from traditional Medicare or from a list of private health plans. The public favored choice A, keeping Medicare the way it is today, by a strong 58-36 margin.

Conservatives will, of course, keeping pushing the idea, despite its manifest unpopularity. But these data suggest that no matter how much they try to disguise the plan and make its changes sound benign, they are likely to meet a wall of public skepticism.

Ruy Teixeira is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. To learn more about his public opinion analysis, go to the Media and Progressive Values page and the Progressive Studies program page of our website.

In the recently released American Values Survey, conducted by Penn Schoen Berland for The Atlantic Monthly and the Aspen Institute, the public endorses spending more on education and infrastructure while raising taxes on the wealthy as the best route to economic growth (56 percent) instead of lowering taxes on individuals and businesses while cutting spending on government services and programs (42 percent).

The public’s opposition to cutting even less essential government services to provide such tax cuts was made clear in a mid-July CBS/New York Times poll where 66 percent opposed that approach, compared to just 30 percent who supported it.

Conservative politicians’ crusade to cut spending and preserve tax cuts for the wealthy may charge up the conservative base. But the broader public seems distinctly unenthusiastic.

Ruy Teixeira is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. To learn more about his public opinion analysis, go to the Media and Progressive Values page and the Progressive Studies program page of our website.

Findings from the recently released American Values Survey conducted by Penn Schoen Berland for The Atlantic Monthly and the Aspen Institute indicate, however, that the public continues to embrace strong government involvement in the health care system. Take the question of whether the government should guarantee health care coverage: With the Affordable Care Act firmly in place, 69 percent of the public still endorses government responsibility for health care coverage, while 31 percent are opposed.

Even more intriguingly, when the public was asked whether the government should exert more influence over America’s health care system to bring down costs and provide health care coverage, 54 percent agreed, compared to 44 percent who endorsed the idea that government involvement should decrease and that the system should be more free-market oriented. So the public actually endorses more government involvement, even with the Affordable Care Act already in place.

Conservatives may think there’s a revolt against government involvement in health care, but these data suggest that if there actually is a revolt, it’s lacking one key ingredient: public support.

Ruy Teixeira is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. To learn more about his public opinion analysis, go to the Media and Progressive Values page and the Progressive Studies program page of our website.