"Do you agree or disagree with the following statements? - America needs a strong leader willing to break the rules"
Republican
|
Democrat
|
Independent
|
|
Strongly
Agree
|
33%
|
10%
|
15%
|
Agree
|
26%
|
12%
|
19%
|
Neither
|
21%
|
21%
|
26%
|
Disagree
|
11%
|
24%
|
15%
|
Strongly
Disagree
|
09%
|
33%
|
22%
|
These are findings from an Ipsos poll conducted on behalf of the USA Today from June 26-27, 2018. For the survey, a sample of roughly 1,004 adults age 18+ from the continental U.S., Alaska and Hawaii were interviewed online in English. The sample includes 338 Democrats, 324 Republicans, and 213 Independents.
At Ipsos, Clifford Young wrote earlier this year:
The logic of this system goes something like “the system is broken; it is broken because the system is rigged to favor the rich and powerful; we can no longer trust traditional parties and politicians to fix it; hence, we need a strong leader to take the country back, even if he or she needs to break the rules.”
The latest flavor of anti-system populist actors, including Trump, has come from the Right—many with strong nativist, country-first messages. Such populist figures, however, are the offspring of low-trust environments. In this sense, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders were in effect “two sides of the same coin”—each representing different flavors of America’s disenchantment with the system. Looking forward, given our low-trust environment, what precludes a “Trump of the left” arising in the next few electoral cycles as a reaction to Trump himself? In my opinion, not much.
