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00:00Joining us now are Ashley Conning. She is the director at the Eagleton Center for Public Interest at Rutgers.
00:05And on set, on the Intrepid, we have our favoritist, Abby Livingston.
00:10She, of course, is with Puck News.
00:11And even though you are here with us, since Ashley did the polling, I think we're going to start off
00:15with her.
00:15Because, Ashley, looking at these different polls, we want to start with this recent NPR-PBS Marist poll,
00:22which asked what we were just talking about, what Lisa was just talking to Tim about,
00:25which is how proud are you to be an American today.
00:27And it looks like the majority, 37%, say they are very proud.
00:33So what do you think is driving that? And what is shaping Americans' opinions of their country?
00:37Yeah, we've seen a lot of headlines in the news right now about saying that patriotism has dropped
00:42and people aren't proud to be an American anymore.
00:44But really, the story here is in how the question is being asked by a variety of pollsters in this
00:50poll and in other ones.
00:51And so we really see that proud-to-be-American number range anywhere from 33% in some polls to
00:5770%.
00:58What's interesting is, you know, it depends on if you're asking about intensity.
01:03Intensity might be a little down, but we do, in general, see about half are supportive or proud to be
01:09an American.
01:09And, in fact, this is a number that really hasn't changed since the bicentennial.
01:14The thing, when we look under the hood, however, is that Republicans are much more positive,
01:19and we see that Democrats are much more negative within the past decade or so when it comes to the
01:24meaning of pride in America.
01:29Abby, picking up on that, let's put this into a political context so there is a kind of contested nature
01:34to pride in America at this moment,
01:36a political nature to it, I'd say, unfortunately here.
01:40But we're on the cusp of a speech that the governor of Maryland is going to deliver a little later
01:43this morning.
01:44We're going to speak with him before that speech.
01:45It's going to focus on the notion of patriotism being a universally held thing.
01:50As you look ahead to the midterms and the general election after that,
01:52how are politicians processing, yes, this moment, this anniversary, but this notion of Americanism?
01:58I even think back on what the president said last night in that speech that was delayed because of weather,
02:02talking about communism and the specter of communism looming large here.
02:07It is a moment when Americanism is kind of being scrutinized and talked about by both parties here.
02:14What I find so fascinating about this, and I've read a lot about the bicentennial.
02:17I wasn't here for that one.
02:19The Hudson behind us was filled with ships, and this was a highly coordinated multi-city thing happening coming from
02:26the White House.
02:27And this is much more bottom-up.
02:29And the thing that I am most interested in this summer, I mean, first of all, I just flew in
02:34from Texas.
02:34And it's the same vibe in Texas that it is in New York City where it's kind of like Christmas.
02:39Like you think, I'm not going to get into it this year, and the bunting is out, the patriotism is
02:43coming out.
02:43I think everyone knows this is special.
02:45Flax are flying, yes.
02:45But I also just wonder, what impact did the World Cup have on this?
02:50And it has been just such a moment where we've had outsiders reflect back to us what a great country
02:54this is
02:54and how many resources we have and how kind individual people are despite our national political turmoil.
03:00And so I just think it's an interesting moment in time.
03:03We see the Robert McAllister passing by here.
03:05I just want to point out, I think we have a shot of that ship coming into port here right
03:09next to us.
03:10And they're starting to move, Christina.
03:11I think your vision is much better than mine.
03:13Well, I'm seizing on these names as I can, knowing that when they really start coming by, I'm going to
03:18have no ability to identify any of these ships.
03:20David's going to absolutely beat me in this ship knowledge today.
03:24But, Ashley, I do have some more polling knowledge that I can lay on you.
03:28We heard very optimistic messages from Abby there.
03:31And I do think there's something to that.
03:33It has been lovely to watch the World Cup tourists come in and, as you said, reflect a kind and
03:39generous and kind of zany image of America with our giant sodas back to us.
03:43But there are other polls.
03:45There are other questions in this poll.
03:46And one of them is, do you think America's best days are behind us?
03:50The majority said they're ahead of us, but it's a pretty close split.
03:54Forty-five percent of the country is saying, do you think America's best days are behind us?
03:58They're saying yes.
04:00What do you do with that?
04:01And if you are a public official, how do you use that?
04:04Do you try to change people's minds?
04:06Or is it easier to get elected if you kind of lean into that?
04:11What's hard here is Democrats and Republicans agree that there is a problem.
04:15And they don't agree, though, on the solution.
04:18And so we see that come through in polling like this, where, you know, Republicans and Democrats alike, the gap
04:24is small when it comes to them thinking that America's best days are behind us.
04:28But it's for different reasons.
04:30And so it becomes very hard for a politician where to kind of go with that.
04:34Are they going to stoke the fire and kind of lean into that anger?
04:38Or are they going to try to find a solution?
04:40But those solutions are not necessarily going to be palatable by partisans of all stripes.
04:45So I think that's a real challenge and a real question as we head into the midterms, especially with Americans
04:51showing kind of such a malaise when it comes to so many components of our democracy and the future outlook
04:57of it as well.
05:01On that note, let me pull up something here for you, Abby.
05:03This is a Marquette Law School study from recent days asked about trust in government.
05:07And this is over a pretty broad historical stretch going back to 1958 when it was 73 percent of Americans
05:13had trust in government.
05:14We've seen a decline ever since.
05:15It's at 18 percent today.
05:1718 percent from 73.
05:18I mean, that's a sobering diminution in trust.
05:21But, I mean, what is a politician to do with that number?
05:24We talk a lot about faith in institutions.
05:26Yes, in Congress.
05:27Yes, in government broadly, journalism and the like.
05:29How do politicians think about rebuilding from that?
05:33I think they have to be worthy of respect.
05:36And I think, I mean, when you go back, you know, 20, 30 years, there wasn't as much scrutiny on
05:41these individual politicians.
05:42We know so much more about them than we ever did before the Internet.
05:45But at the same time, a lot of them don't live up to the status of their job.
05:49And they are in it for themselves.
05:51And the American public is seeing every step of it.
05:54And so I think a lot more self-awareness would go a long way.
05:57Ashley, the other thing that we've been talking a lot about is capitalism, communism, as the president mentioned in his
06:02speech last night, and socialism.
06:04Because you have these self-identified democratic socialists making gains in New York and now Colorado.
06:09And I'm from Colorado.
06:10I went on the bastion of connecting with people you went to high school with, Facebook, and asked a bunch
06:15of people, Facebook.com on the interwebs.
06:17And I said to them, you know, if you are someone who doesn't vote by party name, which a lot
06:22of Coloradans don't, there is a lot of independents, would you vote for someone who self-identified as a democratic
06:29socialist?
06:30And a lot of people immediately said no.
06:32Some didn't.
06:32Some said it was actually a bonus point in their favor.
06:36But we have this question, you know, how do you feel about capitalism?
06:4144% positive from this NBC News poll.
06:4428% negative.
06:45In one of the most capitalist countries in the world, that seems significant to me.
06:50And I'm wondering what your take is on that, especially given these gains of some of these more far-left
06:55candidates in the recent midterms.
06:57Yeah, there's an interesting story here.
06:59And there's been a number of polls about capitalism recently.
07:02And I would say when they're pitted against each other, and even when they're not, we do see that anywhere
07:07from almost half to just over half support capitalism.
07:10And we see maybe anywhere from around a third to just under four and ten support socialism.
07:16But I think that socialism is really a proxy for the wants and the desires of some voters who want
07:24to see more affordability, who want to see universal health care, who want to see prices go down, are concerned
07:30about the economy.
07:31Not necessarily the true definition of socialism.
07:34And we particularly see the desire or the support of socialism, favorability of it, rise among Democrats and rise among
07:42Gen Z voters.
07:43What we need to be or what the Democratic Party, frankly, needs to be aware of going into the midterms
07:48is there is going to be that challenge.
07:51And will a lot of these progressive or Democratic Socialist candidates that are winning in primaries or special elections, will
07:58they also make it through the general in November?
08:00And I think that's the big question here.
08:02And kind of what does socialism mean to Americans when they're saying they're in support of it?
08:07Is it more in support of just simply affordability or is it more in sort of the actual political movement?
08:16Abby Livingston, let me get your read on that as well.
08:18I mean, I think this is a hot button thing, sees on the name itself, on the socialism name.
08:24But to Christina's point, I think obviously in some corners of Denver, here in New York City, there's a resonance
08:29to that message that Ashley was just talking about a moment ago.
08:32What do Democrats broadly take away from what we've seen over the last couple of weeks?
08:35Well, I think with the socialism label, the DSA candidates are the ones who are more inclined to challenge the
08:41status quo.
08:42I think in the next –
08:42Unabashedly.
08:43I think next term we're going to start seeing the politicians who've been waiting in line to run for Congress
08:47or the Senate, who have been waiting for the incumbent to retire like good little politicians do, are going to
08:53look around and say, if I don't run now, I'm going to miss my chance.
08:55And so the big question of the DSA socialist argument is, is this just a really blue district thing, and
09:02do they go to Congress and advocate, or does this spill over and affect other Democrats in safer districts?
09:07And we just don't know the answer to that.
09:09It's going to be really interesting to see, and you can see Republicans who seem to be on the back
09:12foot, at least with messaging, going into the fall now have something that they're seizing on quite quickly.
09:17Can I ask you just very quickly to come full circle?
09:19You talked about sort of what happened here in the Bicentennial, and we haven't talked about how there are kind
09:22of two organizations under which all of these celebrations are happening.
09:25America 250, this kind of bipartisan effort, and then there's Freedom 250, which is President Trump's.
09:29As you watch what unfolds here today, how are you thinking about the way that that split has happened in
09:33light of what you mentioned?
09:34You have about 30 seconds, I'm sorry to say.
09:35I just think it is – I think Donald Trump tried to co-opt this starting with his birthday and
09:40the UFC fight, and I think between the World Cup and everything else, he hasn't.
09:44And so this is – I just am fascinated with how this is becoming a bottom-up celebration, not from
09:50the top down.
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