I find myself wondering sometimes just who is asked to participate in opinion polls. The latest to hit the streets is the YouGov poll regarding British attitudes towards Americans.
Britons have never had such a low opinion of the leadership of the United States, a YouGov poll shows.
As Americans prepare to celebrate the 230th anniversary of their independence tomorrow, the poll found that only 12 per cent of Britons trust them to act wisely on the global stage. This is half the number who had faith in the Vietnam-scarred White House of 1975.
Most Britons see America as a cruel, vulgar, arrogant society, riven by class and racism, crime-ridden, obsessed with money and led by an incompetent hypocrite.
Ouch! Actually, when it comes to incompetent hypocrites, we have our own variety. I haven’t seen the full poll, although I guess I will in due course, but Professor Anthony King writing in the Telegraph suggests a familiar theme; George W Bush is a bit of a tit.
President Bush’s personal ratings in this country are horrendous. Almost no one holds him in high regard as a world leader. Fully 34 per cent think he is a “pretty poor” leader and even more, 43 per cent, reckon he is “terrible” in that role.
Opinion polls rarely produce figures quite as negative as these. Moreover, a majority of Britons regard the US President as not only incompetent but also as a complete hypocrite. As the findings in the chart indicate, 72 per cent of YouGov’s respondents reckon Mr Bush cares little for democracy and is merely using his pro-democracy rhetoric as a pretext for pursuing selfish American interests.
How true this is; or how much is down to impressions, is difficult to tell. Certainly as Anthony King points out in his analysis of the poll, Bush ain’t no Franklin D Roosevelt, Dwight D Eisenhower or John F Kennedy. Indeed, he tends to make Tony Blair look statesmanlike and professional. Each time I see him featured on the news, I am struck by just how incompetent he appears. Here, it seems, there really is a man who is incapable of finding his arse with both hands. So, I guess if I was asked to contribute, my opinion would have been recorded as similarly low as the other respondents.
Yet we do differentiate between “America”, the administration and “Americans”.
As the figures in the chart show, a large majority of Britons like Americans as people either “a little” (49 per cent) or “a lot” (21 per cent) and more than half, 54 per cent, are inclined to feel positively about the US in general. There are certainly few signs in YouGov’s findings of an across-the-board anti-American prejudice.
How many Britons have met and spoken to average Americans (watching movies doesn’t count)? I’ve met a handful of tourists in my 48 years. They have always been polite and pleasant – to the point of putting their hosts to shame. Certainly I cannot make a judgement that concludes that they are “cruel, vulgar, arrogant, riven by class and racism, crime-ridden and obsessed with money” as I don’t have the evidence to back up such a judgement. The Torygraph puts it thus:
To dislike a country as diverse as America is misanthropic: America, more than any other state, contains the full range of humanity between its coasts.
Well, yes, quite. That applies to a greater or lesser any nationality, of course, doesn’t it? It doesn’t stop many Britons hating the French, though. Or, come to that, Scots hating the English.
Disliking the US Government and hating Americans is a different thing entirely. I fundamentally detest Bush and his ilk but I have no beef with Americans. I wish people wouldn’t write off a whole group of people based on what they feel regarding a small percentage of them.