Americans are living in two separate countries. The television channels are different in each one. The newspapers say different things. The trees grow differently, and the skies themselves are not the same color.
Even as Hillary Clinton's popular vote win over Donald Trump tops 2.8 million and (still) counting, a majority of Republicans do not believe it to be true.
Respondents’ correct understanding of the popular vote depended a great deal on partisanship. A large fraction of Republicans — 52 percent — said Trump won the popular vote, compared with only 7 percent of Democrats and 24 percent of independents. Among Republicans without any college education, the share was even larger: 60 percent, compared with 37 percent of Republicans with a college degree.
Whether Republicans truly believe Trump won the popular vote or whether they are reacting with spite towards the questioner is unclear. Do they truly not know? Did they tune out after election day, paying no further attention beyond reading the next-day headlines? Or is the apparent refusal to recognize reality a pathologic choice, rather than an ignorant one?
And what of the now omnipresent news of Russian hacking efforts directed at one party, but not the other, now considered by the American government to be an act intended to help Trump? Does the interference of a foreign power in the American presidential elections "bother" the American citizenry?
Again, it depends on your party membership:
A combined 86 percent of Democrats are bothered a great deal/quite a bit by the interference, versus just 29 percent of Republican respondents who say this.
Because the Republicans do not believe the attacks happened? Or because they believed the attacks did happen, but were not of concern? And what of a more basic question—Trump's behavior towards the Russian strongman himself?
Once again, there's a striking partisan divide: 61 percent of Democrats say Trump is too friendly with Putin, compared with just 8 percent of Republicans who believe that.
Half of Republicans believe untrue things about the election. Only a quarter of Republicans believe election hacking by a foreign power is something that ought to merit concern. And despite the long-running insistence of Republican elected officials that they and only they are capable of projecting a "strong", no-nonsense foreign policy that protects American interests in the world, the party's collective opinion on what was once considered a dangerous adversary has flipped almost entirely after Trump's election.
Determining the true color of the sky may be the least of our problems.