I don’t think these were the things anyone was claiming we were divided over. Of course if you get a bunch of Americans together in a room and ask them if they support freedom of the press and the right to assemble and associate, they’ll say yes, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t still very divided. Ask them what the role of government should be, whether we should provide universal healthcare and tuition free higher education for everyone, if taxes should be raised on corporations and the wealthy, what our immigration policy should be, etc, I’m sure you’ll get a lot less agreement.

“I care about liberty, personal freedom, and equal protection.”

And

“We should ban people from being trans.”

Are incompatible statements though. We don’t actually share these core beliefs with them, because their interpretation of these core beliefs is guided by bigotry.

Americans are divided by propaganda, not values. We’re busy fighting bogus culture war fights about “wokeness,” while the ultra-rich steal everything that isn’t nailed down and make our lives miserable.

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.

30% of Americans think our system is working…

Because we’re stuck with picking between a fascist dictator and an elderly conservative that only stops funding a genocide to kick it’s victims and deny them aid.

There’s no option for voters with functional empathy.

And that depresses turnout, and that’s the only way the fascist can win.

The easy solution, is for Dems to just run a decent human as candidate, but they refuse.

1/3 of American voters believe we should be russia’s bitch. Traitors.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

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.

About three-quarters of U.S. adults agree that a democratically elected government is extremely or very important, and about 8 in 10 think the same about the ability of people living in the U.S. to get good jobs and achieve the American dream.

Juan Sierra, 51, a naturalized citizen whose family immigrated from the Dominican Republic after a hurricane destroyed his father’s cement business, said it is very important to him that the U.S. be seen as a place of opportunity.

Susan Johnson, a 76-year-old Republican living in the Dallas suburbs, said the nation’s standing as a beacon to others who need refuge is very important, but said that could not override concerns about border security.

Many younger people don’t remember a time when those with opposing views and from different political backgrounds could get together and “come over to your house.” Their frame of reference is the hyper partisanship of the Trump years, he said.

The original article contains 1,170 words, the summary contains 231 words. Saved 80%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

I’m mixed on the freedom of religion. In theory it’s awesome. In practice it’s awful. In theory taking it away would solve a lot of problems. In practice it would just cement them