Welcome back to The Honesty Project, a series of opinion surveys from The Free Press. We’re asking Americans what they believe about the most important issues in public life. And we’re going deeper than a typical poll.
We partnered with Populace, an opinion-research think tank, to design surveys that gauge respondents’ “private” opinions—the views they feel are too sensitive to share publicly. Our goal is to overcome the bias inherent in polls, which often elicit less-than-honest responses, and to understand what parts of American life people don’t feel they can speak about freely. (Learn more about the initiative and methodology here.)
A big question has dominated political debate in this year’s primary elections. With the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), who have racked up victories from New York and Pennsylvania to Colorado and Florida, our elections have become a referendum on our economic system. So we decided to ask Americans what they’re thinking about capitalism versus socialism.
The results suggest that the public is feeling down about capitalism but is still wary of full-blown socialism. And many are deciding whether a few socialist candidates might help shake up the system. We found that:
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