It’s often said that America is as politically divided as it has ever been. In this week’s show we dive into the data from two different groups that study American attitudes. What they discovered challenges some of our assumptions about the current state of US politics, and offers us a sense of context missing from noisy ‘us versus them’ type arguments. 

John Geer of Vanderbilt University discusses the latest findings from Vanderbilt’s Unity Index, which tracks Americans’ trust in institutions and democracy. Kate Carney, chief of staff at More in Common in Washington DC, talks about the group’s ‘Speaking to the Exhausted Majority’ report. Both reports are examples of deep research into the state of American public opinion and where common ground may lie.

We discuss the extent to which US democracy is under threat, who really makes up the ‘exhausted majority’ of American voters, and what liberals and conservatives get wrong about the other side. 

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