Aaron Blake
The Washington Post
2/1/2013
Americans have a very special message for the federal government: Don’t tread on me.
That’s the takeaway from a new poll from the Pew Research Center in which, for the first time in at least the last two decades, a majority of Americans say Washington actually poses a threat to their “personal rights and freedoms.”
And it’s not just tea party supporters, Republicans and gun owners.
Nearly two-fifths of Democrats (38 percent) say the government is a threat to them personally, as do 45 percent of non-gun owners.
Overall, the percentage of Americans who view the federal government as a threat has increased from 36 percent in May 1995 to 53 percent today. It rose late in the 1990s and then dropped again after 9/11, down to 30 percent.
Today, most Americans now feel at least somewhat scared of what the government could do to them, and 31 percent see Washington as a “major threat.” This is an important piece of data to keep in mind as Congress debates new gun legislation…
The article continues, with graphics, at The Washington Post.
H/T Dan Riehl:
This goes to a recent argument I made about beating the media, as opposed to obsessively blaming it for everything. If Pew is forced to admit a majority of Americans feel this way about Washington, I find it hard to believe there isn’t enough aligned sentiment out there for the Right to build upon.
Most especially we need to be using New Media to do that – as opposed to primarily focusing on old media. That is, after all, much of what new media has done for the past several years…
In the same Post column an interesting article, DNC has huge debt; RNC has none
Related: Poll: 53% Say Govt Threatens Freedoms
According to a new Pew Research poll, Americans are increasingly worried about the federal government violating their rights. The survey, conducted January 9-13, showed that 53 percent of Americans believe that the federal government “threatens their own personal rights and freedoms,” with 43 percent disagreeing. That is a significant uptick from March 2010, when just 47 percent said that the government threatened their freedom, with 50 percent disagreeing…
