Pollsters seeking to tap what is on the mind of voters are right to focus on the big issues: the economy, illegal immigration, crime, abortion, education, healthcare, foreign policy, and the like. But there are other matters that affect voters, though they are not front and center in most people’s minds. They are more like “sleeper issues.”
Lots of Americans these days, especially those in their middle years and older, are voicing a sense of uneasiness, even bewilderment, about the state of our society in general. Their apprehension is not necessarily rooted in something that Washington has done. It’s more a realization that things have gotten out of whack. Extremes dominate.
In large part, the extremes are rooted in culture, not politics. We can tell from public opinion research........