Poll: Americans believe they aren’t being taught enough about democracy

For Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and other bold-face names struggling to bring about a new nation, an educated and informed citizenry was essential to the success of the American experiment.

Nearly 250 years later, Americans largely feel that the country has achieved the ideals set forth by the Founding Fathers despite expressing doubt and pessimism about the future, according to a new national NBC News poll sponsored by More Perfect, a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to advancing democracy. While the survey revealed deep divisions, particularly around class and party politics, Americans found rare consensus in their dissatisfaction with the country’s commitment to teaching how those founding principles apply today.

The poll of 3,000 adults nationwide found that 80% think the United States puts too little emphasis on civic education, or the teaching of government and democracy. A majority (51%) said the country’s focus on civic education is much too little.

This sentiment cuts across ideological and generational lines: 87% of progressives and 84% of MAGA Republicans say there is too little educational focus on civics. And though the poll exposed enormous gaps between how older and younger Americans feel about nearly every issue, Americans of all age groups were united in the belief that civic education was lacking.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the people who felt most strongly that teaching in this area was insufficient were those who most closely follow public affairs — 84% of those highly-engaged Americans said the nation’s focus on civic education was too little, versus 69% of those who do not follow public affairs.

At the same time, Americans showed a distrust in institutions, including their government. Just 12% of adults nationwide said they have confidence in Congress, and only 18% said they have confidence in the federal government. Views of local government were slightly higher, but only 27% expressed confidence. The national news media also received poor marks, with only 11% citing confidence.

The bright spot for institutional trust is that just more than a third of Americans expressed confidence in colleges and universities. Similarly, 30% expressed confidence in public schools, a level of confidence that has remained relatively unchanged since 2000.

Americans are also evenly split on a question that goes to the heart of constitutional democracy — checks and balances versus concentrated executive power.

When asked whether the country needs strong executive leadership to try to solve problems directly without the input of Congress and the Supreme Court, 48% of adults said they agreed with that position, while 48% said that it was dangerous.

Fifty years ago, in a comparable 1976 Gallup bicentennial poll, 49% said the U.S. needed strong leadership and 44% said strong leadership is dangerous. Since then, the question has been replicated over the years on other high-quality surveys, and the findings consistently showed 6 in 10 Americans believe the country needs strong leadership.

While there are some divisions by subgroups in the latest findings — women, young people, college graduates were more likely to say strong leadership is dangerous, while men, senior citizens, those with education levels at high school or less were less likely to say so — Americans overall are 4 points more likely to say strong leadership might be dangerous compared to 50 years ago.

The new NBC News poll results also showed that half of Americans think the nation’s form of government, based on the Constitution, has stood the test of time and remains sound for the challenges ahead, up 4 points from the results of a Roper national survey of adults taken in 1976.

On the contrary, 18% said that changing times have completely outmoded our system of government and we might as well accept the fact that, sooner or later, we will have to have a new form of government — up 4 points from the Roper poll conducted 50 years ago.

Still, the poll finds a surprising source of optimism. Most people believe they hold the same core values as other Americans and share priorities for their own lives as individuals.

A 54% majority of adults surveyed said that most Americans share the same core values but disagree about politics and issues, compared to 44% who said that most Americans have fundamentally different core values.

Americans across every demographic group, including partisanship, say family and freedom are the two values most important in their own lives.

The NBC News poll surveyed 3,000 adults May 29-June 7 via a mix of telephone interviews and an online survey sent via text message. The margin of error for the poll is plus or minus 2 percentage points.