Fascinating Polling Data on Misguided Millenials, Government Corruption, and “Unattractive” Leftists

I periodically share polling data. This is because public opinion research (if done honestly) provides insights on the degree to which people are either well informed, uninformed, or misinformed.

And that kind of information is useful for policy wonks like me since it shows where we need to re-double our efforts to educate the American people.

And some of the best polling data today comes from the periodic Reason-Rupe survey. They ask fair questions (i.e., they’re trying to discover what people actually think rather than doing “push polls” designed to produce pre-determined results) and they ask interesting questions.

But that doesn’t mean I always like the answers. Reason-Rupe just did a major survey of Americans between ages 18 and 29. Perhaps I’m being a glass-half-empty person, but I’m not overly encouraged by the answers from these so-called millenials.

Heck, I’m tempted to say that the voting age should be raised to 30.

Is this because of how they voted in the past two elections?

Young Americans (ages 18-29) have shifted markedly left in their voting behavior over the past decade. …by 2008, 66 percent voted for Barack Obama, as did 60 percent in 2012.

Nope, that’s not why I’m distressed about millenials. It’s hard to blame voters for turning against the GOP after eight years of Bush’s big-government paternalism. Moreover, both McCain and Romney held a lot of statist views, so I didn’t view the 2008 and 2012 elections as a rejection of libertarianism or small-government conservatism. The Reason-Rupe experts have a similar assessment.

The Republican Party—which rhetorically lays claim to free markets, limited government, and fiscal responsibility—found itself lacking credibility… The Republican Party’s policy mishandlings tainted not just its own brand, but those who share its rhetoric. Messengers selling free markets and limited government under the GOP banner have found it more difficult to reach a trusting audience.

At most, millenials were guilty of believing the nonsensical hype that Obama was some sort of post-partisan leader.

So why, then, am I distressed about the Reason-Rupe poll results? Mostly because millenials appear to be scatterbrained.

We’ll start with the good news. In some ways, they seem very sensible.

…millennials are not statists clamoring for government management of the economy. Quite the opposite. Millennials are still free marketeers—they like profit and competition, they prefer capitalism over socialism… There has been a surge in the share of millennials who think government is wasteful and inefficient… Most also think government agencies abuse their power… Millennials say hard work brings success, as older generations do. They also believe in self-determination and say that individuals are and should be primarily responsible for both their successes and failings, even if this leads to unequal outcomes. Millennials are concerned about growing income inequality, but they prefer a competitive, merit-based society that rewards personal achievement over one with little income inequality. …nearly three-fourths of millennials support “changing the Social Security program so younger workers can invest their Social Security taxes in private retirement accounts.”

But before you conclude millenials have their heads on straight, let’s look at these results.

A plurality of millennials says there is more government should be doing… the cohort still favors social welfare spending and a variety of government guarantees. …Millennials are more favorable toward socialism than they are to a government-managed economy, even though the latter is arguably less interventionist. …Millennials are far more likely than Americans over 30 to identify as liberal. While only 14 percent of Americans over 30 call themselves liberals, 25 percent of millennials do the same. …They support raising taxes to increase financial assistance to the poor, they think government should guarantee access to health care, and a slim majority favors guaranteeing access to college. …American millennials agree government should spend more to help the poor even if it leads to higher taxes. …Nearly seven in 10 say government should guarantee health insurance and a living wage. …The plurality of millennials (48 %) think people usually get rich at the expense of others, a zero-sum view of wealth in society.

So does this mean young voters are statists?

Perhaps, but the most accurate conclusion is that they simply don’t know enough to give consistent answers.

A 2010 CBS/New York Times survey found that when Americans were asked to use their own words to define the word “socialism” millennials were the least able to do so. Accord to the survey, only 16 percent of millennials could define socialism as government ownership, or some variation thereof, compared to 30 percent of Americans over 30 (and 57% of tea partiers, incidentally).

So maybe we should raise the voting age to 30.

Or at least have a rule that says you can’t vote until you have a job and are paying taxes (that might be a good rule for all ages!).

Now that we’ve tried to figure out how millenials are thinking, let’s look at the entire population.

And let’s focus on just one issue: How many Americans think corruption is widespread in government.

The good news is that Gallup found that a record number of Americans recognize that the public sector is a sleazy racket for the benefit of bureaucrats, lobbyists, contractors, politicians, cronies, interest groups, and other insiders.

By the way, I like these results, but they don’t necessarily mean that people want to shrink government. As we saw with the data on millenials, it’s possible for people to favor more government even though they think that it is corrupt, wasteful, and inefficient.

But at least (I hope) this means that they are susceptible to the common-sense message that shrinking government is the most effective way of reducing corruption.

Last but not least, I’m not sure this qualifies as an opinion poll, but it does deal with responses to questions.

It turns out that “unattractive” people are most likely to donate to the Occupy Wall Street movement.

A new series of studies from Stanford researchers has found that people who feel “unattractive” are more likely to donate to the Occupy movement. …participants were then asked to rate their own attractiveness… Finally, after watching a short video about the Occupy Movement, participants were asked if they would like to donate their compensatory $50 lottery ticket to the movement. Researchers found that those who perceived themselves to be less attractive were almost twice as likely to donate to Occupy.

And while we don’t have any research on this issue, I’m going out on a limb and asserting that folks who donate to America’s best think tank are beautiful, charming, debonair, suave, virile, and popular.

P.S. But as you can see here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, the Occupy protesters did generate some good political humor, so they’re not all bad.