By Toni Airaksinen
Anti-Trump supporters rally at the Texas State Capitol on Sunday, July 2, 2017, during an impeachment march in Austin, Texas by anti-Trump supporters in hopes to gain attention and impeach Trump. (Joshua Guerra /Austin American-Statesman via AP)
Three-in-four white Democrats and left-leaning Americans find it “frustrating” and “stressful” to talk politics with people who have a different opinion of President Trump, according to a Pew Research poll released Thursday. While more than half of Americans find it stressful talking to people they disagree with on Trump, white Democrats were the most likely to find it uncomfortable — much more than Republicans of any race.
The findings are from a June 27-July 9 survey, which polled a representative sample of more than 2,500 Americans on political behaviors following Trump’s election.
Among all racial groups, white Democrats were also most likely to feel that support for Trump would “strain a friendship,” with nearly half of white Democrats feeling that way.
Women also found the Trump election especially upsetting. Women are exactly 10 percent more likely to find it stressful to talk to a friend who supports Trump, and 13 percent more likely to say they’re paying more attention to politics.
The poll also found that protests have been a key way Americans are coping with political stress, with 67% of people who attended a protest since the election doing so “in opposition to Trump or his policies,” according to Pew Research.
From San Fransisco to New York, and everywhere in between, thousands of protesters have taken to the streets, sometimes violently, since Trump was inaugurated.
While 15% of Americans have attended a protest since the election, Democratic women with advanced degrees lead the pack. Exactly 43% of them report attending a protest since the election. (Not surprising, considering that roughly 3.2 million Americans attended Women’s Marches alone, according to FiveThirtyEight.)
The results come after a more inflammatory poll, which discovered that more than half of Republicans believe what is taught in higher education has a detrimental impact on the way things are going on in the country. But while Republicans may not like like the cultural Marxist and socialist ethos students are learning in college, not all are in despair. Perhaps due to the fact that conservatives tend to major in more lucrative fields than liberals, such as finance and engineering, more Republicans than Democrats found college useful for developing the skills needed for success in the workplace.
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