Moving this over here because it’s mostly a partisan divide kind of comment. @paules , I mostly agree with your post.
Just commenting that sometimes when you actually break these things down you find out that it’s much more nuanced. For example, wanting more background checks at gun shows or for the mentally ill is different than agreeing to gun control legislation. We’ve had wide agreement on the former, and a lot less agreement when it comes to actually moving on the later.
When I see something like “the average American is pro-EPA,” I wonder what that means. I don’t want to NOT have an EPA. Would I be pro-EPA by that standard? And for people answering that survey question…
So many Americans know little to nothing about specific issues. How many of them could string together a few complete sentences about the largest environmental policy changes of the Obama years? How many people know what the Clean Power Plan is? Do they know what the Clean Water Rule is? Can the average American tell you anything at all about what previous legislation these things are based on? What regulations were already in place? Can they string together a few intelligent sentences about how these things changed in the Obama era? Could they tell us anything about how the role and function of the EPA has dramatically changed over the past decade?
It’s my sense that most Americans can say a few nebulous things like, “I care about the environment,” or “I think climate change is a problem.” It’s almost useless to talk in these generalities, and yet these kinds of statements will completely divide people.
Edited to add: None of us can know everything about specific policy issues, but some of these like energy policy or the EPA are very complex and I find people are particularly clueless.