What We Love and Hate about America.

A new Harris Poll measures what Americans think about the United States or, more specifically, how they rate 16 elements of American life.

Large majorities of the public give high marks to science and technology, the Constitution, the quality of life and colleges and universities. Large majorities give poor marks to our political system, the economic system, public schools, the health care system and the legal system.

These are some of the findings of a Harris Poll® survey of 2,503 U.S. adults surveyed online between May 10 and 17, 2010 by Harris Interactive.

Aspects of American life which get the most positive ratings, defined as those who rate them excellent or pretty good, are:

* Science and technology 75%
* The Constitution 70%
* The quality of life 66%
* Colleges and universities 65%
* TV, movies and entertainment 62%

Other items that also receive positive ratings but from smaller majorities are:

* Civil rights 58%
* The standard of living 56%
* Public safety 56%
* Equal opportunity 52%

The elements that receive the lowest positive ratings (where large majorities give either only fair or poor ratings) are:

* The health care system 33%
* Public schools 32%
* The economic system 28%
* The political system 23%

Other elements that receive low ratings, but better than those above, are:

* The environment 44%
* The system of government 43%
* The legal system 37%

Words matter

The contrast between the 70% of adults who give the Constitution positive marks, the 23% who give the political system a positive rating and the 43% who give the system of government good marks is very striking. Presumably, the system of government and the political system are based on the Constitution. However, for many people, politics and government have strong negative connotations.

Differences by political party

For many of the 16 elements on the list, the differences between Republicans, Democrats and Independents are small. For example, science and technology gets positive ratings of 78%, 76% and 76% respectively. However, on a few items, the differences are quite large. For example:

* Civil rights get better marks from Republicans (70%) than from Democrats (53%);
* Equality of opportunity also gets more positive marks from Republicans (65%) than from Democrats (47%);
* The environment gets much better marks from Republicans (61%) than from Democrats (37%); and,
* On the other hand, the political system is viewed less favorably by Republicans (19%) than by Democrats (33%).

Differences by education

On almost all of the 16 items, the level of satisfaction is correlated with the level of education. For example, those giving the system of government positive ratings increases from 31% of those with no more than a high school education to 45% of those with some college, 56% of those with a college degree, and 61% of those with post-graduate education. This same gradient, or correlation with education, is true of the Constitution, quality of life, colleges and universities and standard of living, the legal systems, the economic system and the political system.

So what?

These results highlight the importance of granularity and the need to avoid sweeping generalizations about what people think about the United States – and other countries. People see many elements that they like about the United States – and other things they dislike. At one end of the spectrum, 75% of adults think well of American science and technology. At the other, 77% have negative opinions about the political system.

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