Poll: Americans are tech optimists.
In his address to the joint session of Congress on April 28, President Joe Biden made the case for reinvigorating the government’s role in technological investment, laying out a vision for what you could call “progressive tech optimism”: the idea that government investment in tech is the path forward to solving Democratic priorities like the climate crisis and developing treatments for illnesses like Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and cancer.
The president’s vision for the role of technology was striking given that both Republicans and Democrats have become incensed by the behavior of different big tech companies and their founders — from Amazon’s treatment of its workers and Twitter’s decision to ban former President Donald Trump. But while both sides of the aisle have been critical of tech companies lately, tech optimism resonates strongly with voters, according to a new poll with Data for Progress (DFP) and Vox.
The poll, conducted between April 16 and 19, surveyed 1,138 likely voters. It found 80 percent of respondents agreed with the relatively anodyne statement: “Technology is generally a force for good,” and then, when given both tech optimist and tech pessimist messages, voters again agreed that tech is a force for good.
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Seventy-one percent of likely voters agreed with the tech-optimist statement: “Technology is generally a force for good. Large tech companies have provided innovations like vaccines, electric vehicles, bringing down the cost of batteries that store green energy, vegetarian meat options, and other ways that have improved our quality of life.” Only 19 percent agreed with the tech-pessimist statement: “Technology is generally a force for bad. Large tech companies are bad for workers, inequality, and democracy. The technological innovations they produce are not worth the cost.”
Republicans, perhaps scarred by the wave of tech companies that banned Trump and some of his allies from their platforms, are more likely to agree with the tech-pessimist statement: 30 percent of Republicans as opposed to only 12 percent of Democrats. Still, 59 percent of Republicans agreed with the tech-optimist message along with 78 percent of Democrats.
Traditionally, presidents of both parties have argued in favor of pursuing new technological advancements by citing America’s need to remain “first” in the world. And in their fight for increased funding for technological research and development, Democrats have repeatedly highlighted China as a growing adversary. This new survey data suggests specific appeals about the danger any one country poses to dominance are likely unnecessary in garnering public support.
Does public support for investing in R&D require anti-China rhetoric?
Bipartisan messaging pitting the US’s future against China’s has taken root. In his joint address, Biden warned that “China and other countries are closing in fast” as he urged Congress to increase public investments in research and development.
He’s not alone in this.
The Endless Frontier Act, a bill championed by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, seeks to “bolster US technology research and development efforts in a bid to address Chinese competition,” Reuters’ David Shepardson reported. Schumer himself has repeatedly warned of the threat the Chinese Communist Party poses as he urges his colleagues to support the legislation — in one statement, he references China three times.
Some commentators have criticized the rise in this oppositional rhetoric, pointing to the attacks on AAPI people over the past year; author R.O. Kwon called Biden’s remarks before Congress “absolutely fucking terrifying.” Trump has been widely excoriated for referring to Covid-19 as the “China virus” or “Kung flu” — rhetoric which may have fueled the flames of anti-Asian sentiment over the last year — and these critics feel Democrats’ language isn’t helping matters.
In the new poll, DFP and Vox tested whether this focus on China was necessary to build public support for new technological investments. Respondents were divided into two groups: In the first, respondents were told that increasing public investment in science and tech would help in “maintaining our competitive edge over China.” In the second, they were told it would help in “maintaining our competitive edge over Europe.” Support for the anti-China message was nearly indistinguishable from the anti-Europe one.
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The study found 66 percent of respondents agreed that the US should “invest more in scientific and technological innovations” when they were told it would help the nation compete with China and 67 percent agreed with that statement when they were told it would help the nation compete with Europe. Looking at the partisan split, Republicans and Democrats are actually more motivated (4 percentage points and 2 percentage points, respectively) by competition with Europe.
In pursuit of drumming up public support for public investments in R&D, voters may be motivated by the desire to maintain American hegemony, but specific references to China do not appear to increase support for the policies.
But, as Vox’s Ella Nilsen and Alex Ward report, Democrats’ anti-China rhetoric may not be about convincing the public but rather a way to get Republican elected officials on board:
“The best way to enact a progressive agenda is to use China [as a] threat,” a Democratic congressional aide told Vox.
The theory that America is at its best when it’s united against a common adversary can motivate members of both parties, especially using the idea that the US will lose its competitive edge or cede ground to another country. Indeed, one of the few things both parties can agree on is the need to compete with China.
Dating podcasters, condom companies, bartenders, and college students weigh in on the horny months to come.
“I’m excited to go a bit buck wild and feel so much safer,” says Elena, a recently vaccinated college student. “Just go on a lot of dates, make out with some guys, nothing serious.”
The 20-year-old Salt Lake City resident, who asked that her last name be withheld to protect her privacy, is ready to make up for lost time in her romantic life. She did some app dating during the pandemic, but Covid-19 was a constant presence, with several of her dates later telling her they’d been exposed (though she never caught the coronavirus). During quarantine, Elena spent time rehashing missed chances in her love life. “I was just thinking, ‘When I’m out of this, I’m going to make the most of every opportunity,’” she says.
In Manhattan, Marc Hernandez, a bartender at the cocktail bar Ampersand, says that even at 50 percent capacity, the scene — “which has always been one for first dates” — is already feeling like its pre-Covid days. “That gets me thinking that the summer is going to be a little wild,” he says.
“Shot girl summer.” “Vaxxed and waxed.” The “whoring 20s.” As the US becomes increasingly inoculated and the weather continues to warm, the number of Americans who are ready to date is on the rise: A Morning Consult survey for the week ending April 25 found that 53 percent of adults feel “comfortable” dating right now, up 9 percent from the last week in March (although women still feel less comfortable than men). Everyone from Andrew Yang to the bidet company Tushy — which is maintaining a herd-immunity countdown clock at CanIEatAssYet.com — are building anticipation for a hedonistic release of pent-up sexual energy.
“Hot vax summer is coming,” Insider proclaimed in March. “NYC singles ready for ‘slutty summer’ of casual sex,” screamed the New York Post. Clearly, many are ready to throw themselves back into the social melee. “Touch starvation” is real, and it can increase stress, depression, and anxiety. But after a year of such intense isolation, fear, suffering, and grief — and as the pandemic continues to rage across many parts of the world — the answer to how people will try to make up for lost time and lost touch is more complex than the orgiastic fantasy hawked by Suitsupply.
According to psychologist Amanda Gesselman, associate director for research at Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute, the pandemic has motivated American singles to look for partners rather than casual sex. While “there will [certainly] be people having the time of their lives” when it’s safe to do so, Gesselman says, “we actually found that people are less interested in no-strings-attached sex than they used to be.” In a recent Kinsey Institute study on post-pandemic sex (conducted in partnership with Cosmopolitan and Esquire), which surveyed 2,000 Americans between the ages of 18 and 45, more than half — 52 percent — of singles said they want to find a committed relationship post-pandemic, while about only one in 10 said they’re looking for no-strings-attached sex.
“That was a bit lower than we expected, considering everyone’s locked up and has been for a year,” Gesselman says. That said, as most people have spent more than a year worrying about infection and thinking about how to protect themselves from germs, she reasons the mindset “might be extending to sex with unfamiliar partners.”
Ilana Dunn, co-host of the dating podcast Seeing Other People, says she’s been hearing similar feedback from listeners and friends. “Everyone’s like, ‘Yeah, of course, I’m going to get really drunk and go wild for like, a week. Because we need to do that. But my goal is to find someone.’” In an Instagram poll that received more than 1,000 responses, Dunn says she was surprised to see 88 percent say that as people get vaccinated and the world opens up, they feel more inclined to look for something serious, while 52 percent said they’ll be open to hookups once they’re vaccinated.
Gesselman believes the pandemic has pushed many people to be more introspective about what they want in their lives, particularly younger adults. “When you’re in your mid-20s and you have your entire future ahead of you, and then you just sat through an entire year of social isolation and halted progress, it really makes you think about the things you want in your life,” she says. “I think a lot of people are thinking more towards what would make their future the best rather than what would be good short-term gratification.”
Meanwhile, condom companies are cautiously hopeful demand for their products will continue to grow along with the vaccinated portion of the US population. Male contraceptives saw a 2.5 percent uptick in sales at the beginning of April, according to Ken DeBaene, LifeStyles’ vice president of sales in the Americas, who says he’s “optimistic this is a return to more normalized consumption levels.” (Between late March and mid-April, the sexual wellness industry overall saw a 4 percent sales bump.) LifeStyles is looking at returns to employment in the hospitality and service industries, as well as colleges’ fall opening plans, to help anticipate demand, DeBaene added.
At LOLA, a feminine care and sexual wellness company, chief marketing officer Monica Belsito says both “self-play and partner play” have been prevalent this year, with the brand seeing a 40 percent spike in lubricant sales and a record number of preorders for its new vibrator. However, as vaccinations of younger populations increase, the company “expects STI protection to steadily increase, creating a demand spike in condoms this summer and fall.”
Many people are also searching for a historical precedent that can shed light on what awaits us in the post-Covid recovery period, from the Roaring ’20s — when the nation indulged after the ravages of World War I and the 1918 pandemic — to 1967’s Summer of Love, when tens of thousands of young people gathered in San Francisco to listen to rock ’n’ roll, experiment with sex and drugs, and protest the Vietnam War.
“If you look at the middle to late 1960s as an opening up after a period of considerable repression in the ’50s, I think the parallel is not unreasonable,” says historian Dennis McNally, who also worked as a publicist for the Grateful Dead. However, he points to the FDA’s 1960 approval of the first birth control pill as a key influence in the sexual liberation movement that climaxed that summer. Even after seeing the hordes of spring breakers that descended upon Miami in March, before vaccines were widely available to younger adults, McNally isn’t convinced the vigilant “pandemic safety” mindset will be banished with vaccines. “The message of all of this is that reality is dangerous, which is a very repressive lesson, and it’s going to take a while, I think, to unlearn that lesson and be able to go out and relax,” he says.
As for the Roaring ’20s comparison often attributed to social epidemiologist Dr. Nicholas Christakis, the timeline he’s laid out doesn’t predict a pendulum swing away from the risk aversion of the present moment until 2024, when vaccines will have been distributed around the world and there’s been more of a recovery from some of the pandemic’s economic devastation. He sees this summer as having the potential to offer “a taste of the past and a hope for the future,” Christakis recently told NPR.
Gesselman and Dunn also cite lingering pandemic-induced social anxiety as another obstacle to a bacchanal this summer. “A lot of people didn’t date last year, and I keep hearing from our listeners that people go on a date and nobody knows how to talk about anything besides Covid, and it’s not leading to good date conversations,” Dunn says. And in Gesselman’s research, one of the top fears respondents have cited is not having the ability to protect their own mental health as they reemerge from quarantine. “It seems like people’s biggest concern is when life opens back up and they’re finally able to pursue these connections, ‘What if I get rejected or things go wrong? What happens if disappointment strikes?’” Gesselman says.
Elena, the college student who’s excited to get back to more carefree dating, is also wary of the expectations she and many of her peers are putting on this post-vaccine summer. “I do think people have very, very high expectations, because you kind of need to live your entire life that’s been put on hold for the past year all in this summer, and if they’re not met it’s going to be tough,” she says. “But I think for the most part, people are really down to do anything.”
When partisan cues aren’t present, voters say they like many ideas in the For the People Act.
Back in March, the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer obtained a recording of an adviser to Mitch McConnell privately bemoaning, on a call with conservative group leaders, that Democrats’ big voting rights bill, the For the People Act, polled quite well. “When presented with a very neutral description” of it, “people were generally supportive,” the adviser said.
A new Data for Progress poll conducted as part of a partnership with Vox backs up that assessment. The poll surveyed 1138 likely voters nationally between April 16 to April 19, and it finds that much of what the 800-page bill claims to do is overwhelmingly popular.
More than 80 percent of respondents said they supported preventing foreign interference in elections, limiting the influence of money in politics, and modernizing election infrastructure to increase election security. More than 60 percent of respondents supported requiring nonpartisan redistricting commissions, a 15-day early voting period for all federal elections, same-day registration for all eligible voters, automatic voter registration for all eligible voters, and giving every voter the option to vote by mail.
There are, of course, a few caveats. The poll presented these questions without partisan cues about which party supports which proposal. Indeed, the one question that mentioned the parties — about whether Democrats should change Senate rules so they could pass redistricting reform without Republican support — was much more closely divided. (Forty-seven percent of respondents said they supported doing this, and 42 percent said they opposed it.)
The questions also didn’t spotlight Republicans’ preferred arguments — for instance, Republicans would stress concerns that same-day and automatic registration could allow ineligible people to vote, which would likely make some respondents more concerned about these proposals.
And other parts of the bill not asked about in this poll, like its limits to voter ID laws (it would allow voters without ID to submit a sworn statement vouching for their identity) and its creation of a public financing system to match small donations, may be more controversial. Voter ID requirements generally poll quite well and public financing often polls poorly.
The poll also asked about a competing redistricting reform proposal not currently in the For the People Act — setting proportional standards such that, if a party wins about half of votes in a state, it should win about half the seats. (I recently wrote about the debate among Democrats over this idea). This got less support than any of the other provisions above but still was backed by 51 percent of poll respondents, with 34 percent saying they opposed this.
In any case, Democrats’ problem when it comes to enacting the For the People Act isn’t the polls — it’s the Senate filibuster. The bill that already passed in a near party-line vote in the House will require a 60-vote supermajority to pass in the Senate. Since no Republican support appears to be in the offing, activists have argued that the Senate should change its rules to let the bill pass. But moderate Democratic senators don’t want to do this.
One key holdout, Joe Manchin, told me in a recent profile that he fears passing a major voting bill on party lines would only further divide the country. He argued that 20 to 25 percent of the public already doesn’t trust the system and that a party-line overhaul would “guarantee” that number would increase, leading to more “anarchy” like that at the Capitol on January 6. He added, “I just believe with all my heart and soul that’s what would happen, and I’m not going to be part of it.”
Unless he changes his mind, the For the People Act can’t pass the Senate.