Corbin is professor emeritus of marketing at the University of Northern Iowa.
According to the most recent data from Pew Research Center, National Election Studies, Gallup, ABC/Washington Post, CBS/New York Times and CNN Polls, only one-fifth of Americans say they trust the federal government to do what is right. The June 12 headline from NBC News article sums it up: “ Americans agree on one thing: DC isn’t getting the job done.”
Thanks to tainted social media, prejudice-laden cable news, biased left- and right-wing think tanks and the disinformation and misinformation provided by politicians and their parties, one can only surmise Americans are greatly divided.
The surprising reality is Democrats, Republicans and independents agree on more issues – about 150 – than they disagree.
Here are some examples:
Abortion: Sixty-one percent of Americans think abortion should be legal in all or most cases (Pew Research Center, June 13).
Gender issues: Gallup notes in a 2022 report that 71 percent of Americans support marriage between people of the same sex.
Gun control: Background checks are favored by 89 percent of the public. Banning assault weapons has 63 percent support, while 64 percent want to ban high-capacity magazines and 60 percent want a nationwide database to track gun sales (ABC News, May 27).
Immigration: Sixty-two percent of Americans feel immigrants strengthen the country; a complete reversal of the position expressed in 1994 (Pew Research Center, Jan. 31, 2019).
Voting: Data for Progress reveals 66 percent of voters want to prevent state lawmakers from overturning elections, while 60 percent support universal vote-by-mail and a majority want to make it easier to vote (Sept. 24, 2021).
Health care: Providing Medicare for all Americans to ensure everyone has health care coverage garners 69 percent support (The Hill, Apr. 24, 2020).
Cannabis: NORML reveals from its Apr. 8 research that 69 percent of Americans support legalizing cannabis plus 60 percent favor expunging cannabis-related convictions.
Racial justice: Eighty-six percent of citizens agree that racism is a problem and 87 percent believe books that discuss race or slavery should never be banned (CBS News, Feb. 22).
Taxes: An Oct. 16, 2021, Vox article notes 71 percent of voters support raising taxes on the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans.
The Program for Public Consultation at the University of Maryland released an Aug. 7, 2020, report identifying nearly 150 issues on which the majority of Republicans and Democrats agree, including:
- Social Security: Raising the cap on income subject to the payroll tax to $215,000 or more.
- Poverty programs: Increasing funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
- Energy and environment: Reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2 percent a year and providing tax incentives to promote clean energy.
- Government reform: Overturning the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and regulating campaign financing.
- International trade: The United States should continue participating in the World Trade Organization and rejoin the Trans-Pacific Partnership that former President Donald Trump abandoned in 2017.
- Federal budget: Roll back the tax cuts from Trump’s 2017 tax bill, impose a 4 percent surtax on income over $5 million and add a 1 percent surtax on corporate income over $100 million.
Let’s face it. Polarization has largely been brought on by political parties wanting to be in control and – let’s not forget – ego-driven and power-hungry politicians.
Examine the 15 issues identified above and note if your legislator is working counter to the will of the people. If so, vote the bums out. If your legislator’s voting record is in accordance with the majority of Americans, do your level best to insure their re-election.
Americans of all political persuasions are together on over 150 issues. But, now – more so than ever – we must have legislators who represent us before their party. For them to do otherwise is a dereliction of duty.
A view of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 25, 2026. President Donald Trump jolted Republicans during a fiery appearance at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, scrapping a housing bill signing ceremony and clashing behind closed doors with a party rebel who challenged him over the Iran war. Trump had been expected to sign the bipartisan housing.
Only Trump doesn’t care about housing
It was August 15, 2024. Then candidate Donald Trump stepped out of his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club’s columned clubhouse to a gaggle of reporters. He was flanked by tables of groceries and signs showing the rising cost of food. Also on one of the tables was a dollhouse, meant to represent the equally alarming rise in housing prices.
It was a speech about the economy, the single most important issue of the 2024 election cycle, full of promises that went right to the heart of Americans’ anxieties. While former President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris were contorting themselves to posture a good economy that just needed more time to recover from the pandemic, Trump was preying on voters’ very real fears of unaffordable gas, groceries, and homes. It was obviously a winning message.
In that speech, Trump promised, “We’re going to open up tracts of federal land for housing construction. We desperately need housing for people who can’t afford what’s going on now.”
As of mid-2023, there had been a housing shortage of nearly four million homes, according to the National Association of Realtors. Americans all over the country were either priced out of buying new homes due to low inventory, trapped in their existing homes by sky-high mortgage rates, or facing exorbitant rent hikes thanks to corporate investors buying up rental properties. Americans needed help, and Trump promised it.
Cut to March of 2026, when Trump reportedly told House Speaker Mike Johnson, “No one gives a sh*t about housing.”
That kind of thinking may explain why Trump this week suddenly announced he was canceling a signing ceremony for the bipartisan “21st Century ROAD to Housing Act,” a housing bill co-sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Tim Scott that passed the House 358-32 and was approved in the Senate on Monday.
Trump instead demanded Congress pass the SAVE America Act, his controversial election grievance bill that doesn’t have enough Republican support to get passed in the Senate.
It’s just the latest in a line of policy self-owns where Trump has seemingly intentionally made life more difficult for Republicans hoping to keep their majority. Despite midterm elections occurring in the midst of a blistering economy and an unpopular war, they were surely hoping the housing bill would give them something — anything — to brag about when they returned home to their districts.
And very much to the contrary, Americans do give a sh*t about housing. According to a recent survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a whopping 79% say the cost of housing is extremely or very important to them. Eighty-three percent say Congress should take action on the issue — like it just did. Eighty-nine percent say the House and Senate need to work together to pass affordable housing legislation — like they just did. And 63% say they would be more likely to vote for a lawmaker if they helped pass legislation to build more affordable homes and lower housing costs — like they just did.
There aren’t many issues that unite Americans like housing does, and very few bipartisan policy wins Congress can point to, and yet, Trump is holding that bill hostage in order to get his pet project — which doesn’t even have the support of his own party — pushed through.
If you’re trying to make sense of something so nonsensical, as I’m sure many Republican lawmakers are, it’s certainly sad but not actually all that complicated. Trump said what he needed to get reelected and then promptly abandoned his promises in order to pursue his own self-interests, even if those interests are bad for Republicans and bad for voters.
That’s just the kind of guy he is.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.