What is ‘Woke?’ New UMass Amherst Poll Asks Americans their Views on Culture Issues : UMass Amherst

“Americans have complicated attitudes about immigration,” Rhodes says. “On one hand, a disturbing percentage of Americans believes in tenets of the racist, xenophobic ‘Great Replacement Theory.’ But on the other hand, strong majorities of Americans want to provide opportunities for unauthorized immigrants who meet citizenship requirements and are positive contributors to society to become citizens. This shows that, while anxieties about immigrants are strong, they have not hardened into punitive attitudes toward immigrants – even unauthorized immigrants – living in the US today. Instead, a strong majority of Americans remains compassionate toward people living at the margins of American society.”

“While the more virulent aspects of the ‘Great Replacement Theory’ generally fail to garner majoritarian support outside of conservatives and Republicans,” Nteta says, “two key tenets of the theory have emerged as relatively popular: the belief that elected officials – and Democrats in particular – are supporting lax immigration policies (52%) and that they are doing so to mobilize voters that will support them (49%). Given this perspective concerning Democrats’ purported relationship with immigration, it should come as no shock that a number of prominent Republicans, most notably Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene, have called for President Biden’s impeachment based on his handling of the immigration crisis at the southern border.”

Rhodes agrees, saying “Troublingly, belief in tenets of the racist, xenophobic Great Replacement theory has become mainstream among Republicans, particularly those who supported former president Trump. The formulation of antagonism toward immigrants as a party ideology is very dangerous in American politics. As we saw during Trump’s presidency, it can lead to brutal public policies, such as mass family separations and indefinite detention under inhumane conditions, as well as an increase in hate crimes and violence against perceived immigrants. Responsible Americans have a lot of work to do to combat the spread of this virulent and dangerous ideology in American society.”

Religion and Antisemitism

Finally, the poll also surveyed respondents’ views on Christian nationalism and antisemitism.

“Despite the fact that the Founding Fathers were explicit about separating church and state, half of the Americans (50%) in our poll said that the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation,” La Raja says. “Perhaps more surprisingly, close to 40% believe that America ‘should always be a Christian nation.’ I think Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Franklin – who all kept religion at arms-length – would be surprised to look at these poll numbers.”

“Democrats and Republicans diverge starkly on whether the United States is and should be a fundamentally white and Christian nation,” Theodoridis says. “What’s particularly troubling is that sizable majorities of Republicans subscribing to central tenets of both Great Replacement Theory and Christian Nationalism. That these racist, nativist and discriminatory takes are not fringe beliefs among the Republican rank-and-file is undoubtedly connected to the willingness of many GOP politicians to exploit baser impulses in pursuit of votes rather than appealing to, in Lincoln’s words, the ‘better angels of our nature.’”

Regarding the nation’s views on Jews, La Raja says, “What is striking to me is that one-fifth (20%) of Americans believe it is okay for opponents of Israel’s policies to boycott Jewish-American businesses in their communities, making no distinction between a foreign government and their fellow citizens. Looking toward the future, perhaps of greater concern is that these sentiments are felt somewhat more strongly by young people. Thirty-five percent of Americans age 18-29 feel this way, and this same youth cohort is also more likely to say Jews are more loyal to Israel than to America.”

Methodology

This University of Massachusetts Amherst Poll of 1,133 respondents nationwide was conducted by YouGov May 31-June 8, 2023. YouGov interviewed 1,298 respondents, including 1,165 main sample respondents, and an oversample of 133 African Americans. The main sample was matched down to a set of 1,000, and then combined with the oversample to form a final dataset of 1,133 respondents. The main sample was matched to a sampling frame on gender, age, race and education. The sampling frame is a politically representative “modeled frame” of U.S. adults, based upon the American Community Survey (ACS) public use microdata file, public voter file records, the 2020 Current Population Survey (CPS) Voting and Registration supplements, the 2020 National Election Pool (NEP) exit poll and the 2020 CES surveys, including demographics and 2020 presidential vote.

The matched main sample and the unmatched oversample were then weighted to their respective frame using propensity scores. The frame used for the oversample is similar to the previously described frame from the main sample, with the main difference being that it includes only African Americans. The matched cases and the frame were combined, and a logistic regression was estimated for inclusion in the frame. Both propensity score functions included age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, and region. The propensity scores were grouped into deciles of the estimated propensity score in the frame, and post-stratified according to these deciles.

The weights for the main sample were then post-stratified on 2020 Presidential vote choice, followed by a four-way stratification of gender, age (4-categories), race (4-categories) and education (4-categories). Meanwhile, the weights for the oversample were post-stratified on 2020 Presidential vote choice, a three-way stratification between gender, age (4-categories) and education (4-categories), and finally an individual stratification on region.

Then, the matched and weighted main sample and oversample datasets were combined into one. From there, the proportion of African Americans was weighted down to produce the final combined weight. After that, a subset of this combined dataset was taken so that only observations involving African Americans remained. This African American subset of the combined dataset was weighted to the same frame as the oversample using propensity scores. The unmatched cases and the frame were combined, and a logistic regression was estimated for inclusion in the frame. The propensity score function included age, gender, race/ethnicity, education and region. The propensity scores were grouped into deciles of the estimated propensity score in the frame, and post-stratified according to these deciles. Finally, the weights were then post-stratified on 2020 Presidential vote choice, followed by the same three-way stratification mentioned earlier, in order to produce the final African American weight.

The margin of error within this poll is 3.4%.

Topline results and crosstabs for the poll can be found at www.umass.edu/poll