Ignore media hype and political showmanship. It’s not reflective of the actual status of U.S. democracy.

Gary Fields and Amelia Deveaux, “Yes, we’re divided. But new AP-NORC poll shows Americans still agree on most core American values,” Associated Press, 04-03-2024, https://apnews.com/article/ap-poll-democracy-rights-freedoms-election-b1047da72551e13554a3959487e5181a

Despite the country’s deep political polarization, most Americans share many core beliefs about what it means to be an American, according to a new poll.

The poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about 9 in 10 U.S. adults say the right to vote, the right to equal protection under the law and the right to privacy are extremely important or very important to the United States’ identity as a nation. The survey also found that 84% feel the same way about the freedom of religion.

The results, which included perspectives on a number of different freedoms and rights, have only small variances between Republicans and Democrats except on the right to bear arms, which Republicans are more likely to see as core to the nation’s identity. The overall findings are striking because they come at a time of extreme partisanship when political agreements seem rare and concerns are heightened over the potential for violence during a volatile presidential election year.

“If you get a bunch of normal people at random and put them in a room together and chat about issues, there’s a lot more convergence than you might imagine,” said Michael Albertus, a political science professor at the University of Chicago.

A more pessimistic assessment of the country was reflected in another finding — that only about 3 in 10 Americans believe the nation’s democracy is functioning well. About half say the U.S. is a poorly functioning democracy, while 14% say the U.S. is not a democracy.

The tension between the broad consensus on the country’s fundamental values and discontent with how well its form of government is working is not a surprise, experts say.

“Part of it is really our leaders are not reflecting the electorate, and they behave in a way that’s much more polarized than what the electorate is,” said Lilliana Mason, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins University.

Most Americans, she said, “are pretty moderate, but they’ve been riled up to hate people of the other party for being different from them culturally, racially and religiously.”