Survey Says is a weekly series rounding up the most important polling trends or data points you need to know about, plus a vibe check on a trend that’s driving politics or culture.
Do you think your fellow citizens are principled people?
If you live in the United States, you probably don’t. Most Americans (53%) rate their fellow citizens’ morality and ethics as somewhat or very bad, according to a new study from the Pew Research Center.
And that makes America exceptional—in a not-so-good way. Out of the 25 nations included in Pew’s study, the U.S. is the only one where most people think their fellow citizens are immoral.
Not only are we alone in that respect, but also, among some of our closest peers, we’re especially strange.
Nearly all Canadians (92%) view their fellow citizens as morally and ethically good, as do 82% of Britons and 83% of Mexicans and Japanese people. Even in Germany, where Nazism is only about 80 years in the rearview mirror, 72% see their fellow Germans as moral people.
Because this was the first time Pew asked the question, it’s hard to determine how long Americans have held this stance. However, it’s very likely things haven’t always been this dour.
Though Democrats and Republicans have long viewed each other in a negative light, those views have intensified over the past 20 years. In 2002, just 20% of Republicans and 26% of Democrats held a “very unfavorable” view of the opposing party, according to Pew. Coming soon after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, that was a time of unusual unity in the U.S. For example, then-President George W. Bush enjoyed a gobsmacking 90% approval rating—the highest in Gallup’s lengthy polling history.
But over the next 20 years, tempers flared. By 2012, 43% of Republicans and 46% of Democrats held very unfavorable views of each other. And by 2022, those shares had hit clear majorities in both parties—62% for Republicans and 54% for Democrats.
And when it comes to morality specifically, we see a similar rise in hostilities. In 2016, 47% of Republicans said Democrats were “immoral,” but that jumped to 72% by 2022. The same thing happened with Democrats: In 2016, 35% deemed Republicans immoral, but six years later, 63% did.
Together, those data points suggest that while neither party likes the other, Republicans loathe Democrats more than vice versa. That tracks with how Democrats regularly make appeals to center-right independents and disaffected Republicans, while the GOP very rarely bothers trying to court those left of center. After all, when was the last time you saw a high-profile Republican candidate take to the streets and earnestly try to understand why someone voted Democratic?
Of course, Trump’s role in all of this is obvious. A man who relishes abject cruelty, he infamously attacked America’s liberals as “the enemy within” and posted a video portraying the nation’s first Black president, a Democrat, as an ape. His vitriol is now the native tongue of the GOP, and as Republicans’ views of Democrats have darkened, so have Democrats’ views of Republicans. It is no surprise that both parties started to see the other as increasingly immoral after 2016.
The Trump of it all may also explain a peculiar finding in Pew’s new study: Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say their fellow citizens are immoral (60% vs. 46%, respectively).
Though the study was released on March 5, its surveys were fielded in spring 2025, shortly after the 2024 election. In those first post-election months, it’s little surprise that Democrats were more pessimistic about the nation’s morality. America had just delivered a popular-vote victory to a racist authoritarian who had tried to overthrow the government less than four years prior. All of Democrats’ darkest suspicions about the country had just been confirmed. Whereas for those on the right, their worldview had just won out.
Trump-like figures may also explain other nations’ lukewarm takes on their fellow citizens’ morality.
Turkey scores the second worst in Pew’s study, with 49% of Turks viewing their fellow citizens as morally bad. Turkey is led by far-right President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. In power since 2002, Erdoğan has dragged his nation away from democracy and toward dictatorship, repressing popular dissent and attacking various minorities. Similar to Trump in the U.S., Erdoğan won a slim popular-vote victory in his most recent election, despite the fact that Turks largely dislike him.
Brazil’s similarly bleak score may be due in part to its former President Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right populist in Trump’s mold. Amid his 2018 presidential campaign, Bolsonaro made a so-called joke about “shooting” members of the progressive Workers’ Party—a level of hostility that was common for him. Despite that, Bolsonaro won over 55% of the vote in the 2018 election and even scored 49% in his 2022 reelection, showing that about half of Brazil endorsed his divisive, cruel messaging.
France and Italy, whose citizens also have low views of their countries’ morality, have similar troubles with popular far-right movements. In 2022, 41% of French voters threw their support behind Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Rally party. And Italy is currently led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of the fascist-friendly Brothers of Italy party. Meloni has endorsed the false “great replacement theory,” which, in her telling, posits that shadowy financiers were using migrants so as to dilute Christian culture and turn Europeans into consumerist “slaves.” Le Pen is also a proponent of the racist theory.
Meanwhile, many countries whose citizens have a sunnier view of national morality don’t have such malicious, divisive heads of state, or their right-wing populist parties hold less power.
In many cases, other social and cultural factors can bond a nation, making its citizens more prone to see one another as ethical. For instance, 83% of Mexicans view their fellow citizens as morally good, which might be tied to how 89% of the population is Christian and 78% is specifically Catholic.
It doesn’t help that in the U.S., there is wide disagreement on moral issues. Pew’s study asked about views on nine of them, like drinking alcohol and using contraceptives. Despite near-universal agreement on the immorality of married people having affairs, Americans were heavily fractured on many issues, such as viewing pornography, which about half (52%) consider immoral.
Other nations tend to have a more lopsided opinion on watching pornography. For instance, Japan is widely accepting, with only 20% saying it’s immoral, while Indonesia is very opposed to it, with 85% calling it immoral. Such a broad agreement on issues, in either direction, might be one reason both nations’ citizens overwhelmingly view their compatriots as morally good.
Still, there aren’t easy answers here. Trump may have rotted our views of one another, but he may be more an expression of the problem than the problem itself.
Any updates?
-
If a Kristi Noem was fired in the government, would anyone hear it? Probably, but they sure wouldn’t care. Yes, a new poll from YouGov finds that only 11% of Americans disapprove of Trump firing Noem as the head of the Department of Homeland Security. The poll ran a fun experiment, too: To half the respondents, it mentioned Trump firing her, and to the other half, it left his name out. Mentioning Trump’s name scores a higher level of support for the firing (60%) than not mentioning his name (53%). The funny thing is, in both formulations of the question, only 11% disapprove of the firing. Ouch.
-
Senate progressives’ dream of a wealth tax might just come to bear in California if a new poll is to be believed. This fall, the state is voting on whether to enact the Billionaire Tax Act, which would levy a one-off tax of 5% on Californians with a net worth of $1 billion or more. And exactly half of Californian voters support a wealth tax in California, per a poll from—inhales deeply—Politico and the University of California Berkeley’s Citrin Center for Public Opinion Research. Just 23% are opposed to the measure.
Vibe check
The Academy Awards ceremony kicks off the minute this column is published on Sunday, and if you’re reading this on Monday or later, you know everything that happened.
Going into the ceremony, the popular favorite is “Sinners,” which was seen by 28% of Americans and loved by 56% of those who saw it, according to YouGov. That’s better than the numbers for “Frankenstein,” the second-most watched (25%). Only 40% of its viewers said they loved it.
Though broadly enjoyed, “Bugonia” ranks as the least-liked of the bunch, with 12% of its viewers saying they disliked it and another 2% saying they hated it. The catch is, only 8% of Americans watched it.
What do you want to win best picture?
