Amazon more popular than Facebook, Twitter, and many U.S. government institutions. A new survey from The Harris Poll and the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard showcases the extreme popularity of Amazon.
As politicians continue to trash talk the online retail giant and propose new laws to break it up in the name of populism, the survey throws another blow to the idea that this is more than a politics-driven crusade.
The new poll—conducted June 15 through 17 among 2,0006 registered U.S voters—found Amazon with a higher favorability rating than all but one of the 18 institutions that surveyors asked about.
Some 72 percent of survey respondents viewed Amazon favorably. This placed it second only to the U.S. military, which was viewed favorably by 78 percent of those polled, and slightly above police, which earned a 68 percent favorability rating.
Amazon also polled more favorably than the FBI (60 percent favorability), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (58 percent), the Supreme Court (57 percent), Facebook (51 percent), the Department of Justice (49 percent), Israel (47 percent), NATO (46 percent), Black Lives Matter (45 percent), the European Union (41 percent), and Twitter (37 percent).
At the bottom of the favorability rankings were Russia (21 percent favorability), antifa (20 percent), the Palestinian Authority (19 percent), China (18 percent), and Hamas (16 percent).
The poll also looked at the public perception of current U.S. political leaders, finding net favorable ratings of President Joe Biden and mixed reviews of Vice President Kamala Harris.
Biden’s favorability rating stood at 54 percent, with 39 percent unfavorable.
Harris polled at 43 percent favorable and 43 percent unfavorable.
That makes Biden more popular—and Harris less popular—than former President Donald Trump (46 percent favorability) and Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders (45 percent favorability).
None of the other political figures asked about polled at higher than 40 percent favorability. Getting close were Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (38 percent), Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis (36 percent), Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (35 percent), New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer (34 percent), former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (33 percent), South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott (33 percent), and New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (31 percent).
At the lower end of the politician favorability rankings were former Attorney General William Barr (29 percent), West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin (28 percent), Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Ayanna Pressley (22 percent), Arizona Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (22 percent), Russian leader Vladimir Putin (21 percent), Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar (21 percent), Michigan Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib (20 percent), current Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett (18 percent), and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (16 percent).
FREE MINDS
Laws against teaching critical race theory are un-American, argue Kmele Foster, David French, Jason Stanley, and
This Wave of Anti-Critical Race Theory Laws is Un-American – I teamed together with @kmele @thomaschattwill and @DavidAFrench on this piece. https://t.co/IFZnNGcsS8
— Jason Stanley (@jasonintrator) July 5, 2021
FREE MARKETS
How ditching tariffs and export restrictions could save lives:
Let medicine and medical goods flow across the world to reduce costs and save lives! https://t.co/6qKcO9HXvr
— Jared Polis (@jaredpolis) July 6, 2021
QUICK HITS
Julian Assange turns 50 in prison today. His “crime” is publishing journalism that exposed US war crimes in Iraq.
Meanwhile George Bush is free, Cheney is free, Condi Rice is free, Colin Powell is free & the guy who lead the Democrat push for the war is president. What a world
— Abby Martin (@AbbyMartin) July 3, 2021
• Cathy Reisenwitz on “How Exodus Cry reinvented the white slavery moral panic for a modern age.“
• A vulgar vanity plate showdown in Maine.
• Embryo lawyers nixed: An Alabama law that would’ve granted lawyers to embryos in cases of minors seeking abortions has been ruled unconstitutional by a federal appeals court.
• “Politics is becoming religion in our country,” Utah’s Republican Gov. Spencer Cox complained Sunday on “Face the Nation” in a discussion of Utah vaccination rates. “Politics is becoming sport and entertainment in our country. That everything is political. It is a huge mistake, and it’s caused us to make bad decisions during this pandemic and in other phases of our life as well. It is deeply troubling.”
• Data from Johns Hopkins University shows the disparity in COVID-19 cases between states with low and high vaccination rates. “As of Sunday, states with lower rates of vaccination reported an average of 6 new cases per 100,000 residents every day over the past week,” notes CNN. “States with higher vaccination rates reported an average of 2.2 new cases per 100,000 residents each day over the past week.”
• COVID-19 has dropped from the number one cause of death in the U.S. in January to the 7th leading cause of death in June.
• The Wall Street Journal condemns “Lina Khan’s power grab” at the Federal Trade Commission.
• Jeff Bezos is stepping down as CEO of Amazon.
• Why are Chinese millennials “lying flat”?
• Around a dozen Rise of the Moors militia members got in a standoff with police in Massachusetts over the weekend.
• The Advanced Research Projects Agency proposed by Joe Biden is drawing criticism. “The way Biden would make ‘ARPA-H’ and its $6.5 billion budget part of the sprawling National Institutes of Health is raising concern within the research community and in Congress about whether it will bring a new approach to old problems or become a duplicative bureaucracy with a lofty mandate,” according to Politico.
• On Monday, Maryland’s highest court “denied Gov. Larry Hogan’s request to block a lower court’s order that temporarily prevents the state from cutting off enhanced federal unemployment benefits for workers who lost jobs during the pandemic,” reports The Washington Post.
• Who will control the Senate after the 2022 elections? “The fight for control of the evenly divided Senate will be the most dramatic showdown of 2022,” suggests CNN, reporting that the states with seats most likely to flip include Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
• BoltBus is indefinitely suspending service.
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