Gallup released a new poll about public attitudes toward the coronavirus crisis. They find that most people think the media shouldn’t downplay or exaggerate the threat. Imagine that. There are some partisan differences with Democrats more “strongly” believing the media shouldn’t downplay the threat and Republicans more “strongly” believing the media shouldn’t exaggerate it. But overall, most people seem to prefer knowing the truth about a highly contagious, deadly disease. I’d be impressed if I actually believed that was true…
But it’s the question illustrated above that interested me because it’s really uninformative. It’s tempting to think that if 72% of the country believes the harm from the virus is worse than it needed to be it reflects a consensus that Trump screwed the pooch. But that’s probably not true. I would guess that Democrats and Indies hold Trump more responsible for the spread of the virus due to his incompetent response. I would also guess the Republicans hold China responsible for the harm from the virus in the first case, and the governors for locking down their state in the second. These are big differences that aren’t reflected in a vague question like that.
So, I don’t think it tells us much beyond the fact that everyone agrees that the harm from the virus is worse than it needed to be, which isn’t nothing. But, as usual, the devil is in the details.