12A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, AUGUST 9, 2016
Divided: Surveys ind broad agreement on a range of topics
Continued from Page 1A
All the splintering bared
in the rhetoric of a presiden-
tial campaign belies another
truth: Americans are remark-
ably united, too.
You see it in the banality
of routine, in morning drives
to work and evenings before
the glow of a TV. You see it
along parade routes, in blood
donation lines after tragedies,
and in the quiet prayers of the
faithful. You see it in the lag.
Bouldin works on the
opposite end of a sprawling
sewing room loor from Ed
Haney and political pollsters
would see them in different
worlds altogether. Haney is
white and male, tends to side
with Republicans and expects
to vote for Donald Trump.
Bouldin is black and female,
always votes Democratic and
will cast her ballot for Hil-
lary Clinton. Yet they both
speak of their Christian faith,
the importance of family, their
love of America.
“The United States is
the freest and the best coun-
try on this earth and that lag
represents that,” said Haney,
a 69-year-old maintenance
mechanic at Annin. “The
country was founded by men
of different opinions who
united on one thing: The free-
dom to have those opinions.”
Broad agreement
For all the divisions well-
known across the U.S., sur-
veys ind broad agreement on
a range of topics.
On foreign affairs, Ameri-
cans hold resoundingly favor-
able views of Canada, Great
Britain, France, Germany and
Japan, and unfavorable ones
of North Korea, Iran, Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Overwhelm-
ingly, they see the Islamic
State group as a major threat.
Domestically, there’s near
unanimity that veterans should
be better cared for, and that
more research into renewable
energy should be supported.
Medicare and Social Security
are wildly popular, and most
have a positive view of entre-
preneurship and small busi-
To unite or divide
America in one word? ‘Free,’
‘great,’ or ‘divided,’ ‘broken’
Poll takers were asked which
candidate, if elected, would
make the country more
united or more divided:
Much/somewhat more united
Clinton
By MATT SEDENSKY
AP National Writer
34%
Trump 17%
Neither more united
nor divided
21
9
Much/somewhat more divided
43
73
Don’t know/refused to answer
1
2
NOTE: Poll of 1,008 adults; margin
of error ±4.1 percentage points;
conducted June 23-26.
SOURCE: The Associated
Press-NORC Center for Public
Affairs Research
AP
ness. Nearly all Americans
believe in helping the less
fortunate.
The gun debate may polar-
ize Capitol Hill and state-
houses, but there is wide con-
sensus among Americans
on mandating background
checks for gun shows and pri-
vate sales (85 percent agree,
according to a Pew Research
Center poll), and on keeping
weapons from the mentally ill
(79 percent agree).
Abortion remains acrimo-
nious, but relatively few peo-
ple call for totally legaliz-
ing or outlawing it in every
case, with the majority of peo-
ple somewhere in the middle.
(Only 24 percent of Americans
believe in blanket legalization,
according to Pew, and 16 per-
cent are for an outright ban.)
And though immigration
remains a lashpoint, most
Americans believe undocu-
mented immigrants should be
able to remain in the country if
they meet certain conditions.
(Another Pew poll found 74
percent of Americans held that
view.)
“The average Democrat
and the average Republican
are not that far apart from each
AP Photo/Gerry Broome
Employees Lottie Penick, left, and Melissa Hodnett iron
stars onto a United States flag at Annin Flagmakers in
South Boston, Va. Ask the workers at the factory to name
life’s most important things and family, work and faith
are repeated. Presented the chance to live in a foreign
land, the idea is uniformly rejected, with each saying
America can’t be beat. And nudged to sum up what this
country’s people share, they invoke their handiwork and
what it stands for — freedom, opportunity and pride.
other,” said Patrick Miller, a
political science professor at
the University of Kansas.
Hard work
Unity also emerges in
comparing the U.S. with other
countries. Americans are more
likely than those elsewhere
to believe hard work is very
important to get ahead in life
and that individuals have con-
trol over their success. They
stand out among rich coun-
tries for their optimism and
their widespread belief in God,
the importance of religion in
their lives and the regularity in
which they practice their faith.
Some 89 percent of Americans
express some level of belief in
God, according to Pew.
Americans may not agree
on whether to support Clin-
ton or Trump, but they unite
in their lack of conidence in
Congress and the political sys-
tem overall. They hold rabid
allegiances to varying sports
teams, but will chant “USA”
together as Olympians com-
pete. They love shopping; red
meat, ice cream and cheese;
and dogs over cats.
That unity is embodied in
the lag. American children start
their school days, hand to heart,
in a pledge, and it becomes as
much a ixture in their lives
as in their history books. The
lag has been draped over ath-
letes, launched into space and
planted at the North Pole. After
9/11, it lew from porches from
sea to sea.
Annin opened in 1847 and
has seen spikes of patriotic fer-
vor throughout its history. At
the company’s cavernous fac-
tory near the Virginia-North
Carolina line, the air is thick
with the smell of dye and glue
and the din of jackhammering
needles. The company added
a third shift to accommodate
demand but isn’t entirely sure
what’s driving orders.
Buddy Wilborn isn’t
sure either. He’s 59 and on a
break from repairing sewing
machines. When there are try-
ing times — whether terrorism
or natural disaster or a hard-
ball political season that drives
wedges between people — he
sees the lag’s resonance grow.
He’s not so sure who he’ll vote
for come November, but he
sees hope.
“I think our country is start-
ing to come back together,” he
said.
NEW YORK — Free and
great, or divided and confused.
Diverse and powerful, or trou-
bled and broken. In search of a
single word encapsulating their
country at this moment, Amer-
icans offered pollsters a lexi-
con relecting both hope and
dissonance.
The most-uttered word from
about 1,000 responses to the
Associated Press-NORC Center
for Public Affairs Research sur-
vey was “freedom,” with “free”
not far behind at No. 4. “Great”
took second place — and
“good,” “powerful,” “wonder-
ful” and “awesome” also occu-
pied the top tier. But crowding
the list were entries mirroring
national angst.
“Divided” ranked third, and
“confused” and “troubled” tied
for ifth, amassed alongside
other words of distress: “bro-
ken,” “lost,” and more bluntly,
“screwed.”
Pollsters say grouping peo-
ple’s answers together with syn-
onyms and related words is a
better relection of public senti-
ment. Viewed that way, “strug-
gling,” “declining” and their
synonyms accounted for the
biggest chunk of words, from
about one-ifth of answers.
Some 18 percent of respon-
dents offered words related to
American greatness, prosper-
ity and power, which collec-
tively ranked second, followed
by those linked to freedom
(15 percent), and “confused,”
“lost” and similar choices (10
percent).
Positive and negative words
were almost evenly split.
“When you see words like
‘freedom’ and ‘divided’ together,
you get a good little portrait of
what people are thinking,” said
Peter Sokolowski, editor-at-
large at Merriam-Webster, the
dictionary publisher. “You can’t
get more balanced than that.”
Republicans used “strug-
gling,” “declining” and simi-
lar terms more than Democrats
(27 percent versus 15 percent).
Those without college degrees
were also likelier to do so.
Bobby Underwood, a
67-year-old retired carpet mill
worker in Dalton, Georgia,
chose “troubled” when chal-
lenged to describe his country.
With killings of police oficers,
Islamic State group attacks, a
divisive election and concerns
about the economy and illegal
immigration, Underwood said
he was left with an unhappy
word in his mind.
“Troubled,” he said. “That
pretty much sums it up for me.”
More than 350 individ-
ual words lowed into the poll
released this week — from
“bossy,” “boring,” “bounti-
ful” and “bigoted” to “eclec-
tic,” “enthusiastic” and “equal.”
Also: “paradise,” “perplex-
ing,” and a few cases of profan-
ity. They pointed to high ideals
— “democracy,” “opportunity,”
“liberty” — and dire assess-
ments — “greedy,” “racist,” and
“doomed.” Some screamed in
all capital letters: “UNITED”
and “TERRIFIED.” Others used
punctuation for added effect —
“disaster!!” and “great!”
Jack Blanton of Lexington,
Kentucky, thought of his 81
years in weighing his answer.
He grew up in a rural town in
the Appalachian foothills, work-
ing on his grandparents’ tobacco
farm and later in a steel mill. He
moved around the country and
saw the world, earned a Ph.D.,
and rose to become a university
vice president.
He wondered what other
country could give a farm boy
such a life, and concluded
America’s best days are ahead.
He decided on “great.”
“Who wouldn’t be optimis-
tic?” he asked. “My whole life
has been blessed.”
Online: AP-NORC Center:
http://www.apnorc.org/
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