Military veterans and their families are among the most trusted voices in today’s highly polarized political and social landscape.
That’s according to a new report released Tuesday by the Veterans and Citizens Initiative.
VCI conducted a series of studies from July 2020 through March 2021 which examines attitudes towards shared civic responsibilities, what Americans have in common, and how veterans and military families can best serve as messengers to overcome societal divides.
Related
The December 2020 survey found that 61% of Americans agree that veterans are role models for good citizenship and 56% of Americans agree that military families are role models for good citizenship.
The survey also found that Americans want veterans and military families to carry a unifying message to move the country forward: When presented with a nonpartisan message about the country coming together in 2021, 60% of Americans said veterans would be a trustworthy messenger for the sentiment.
Veterans garnered support from across the political spectrum -- with 65% of Democrats and 69% of Republicans saying they would pay attention to veterans as messengers for unifying the country.
Related
"A consistent finding over the past 20 years has been the high trust Americans place in the U.S.military,” said Dan Vallone, the U.S. director for More in Common, the nonpartisan nonprofit which led the surveys. “Polling on public attitudes towards U.S. military veterans and service families has been less extensive, however, and this report suggests that much of the trust Americans place in the military carries over.”
Additional survey data collected by VCI in March 2021 underscores the importance of veterans engaging the broader civilian society in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. In this survey, public trust in veterans as role models for good citizenship dropped to 47% when respondents were presented with information on the role of veterans in the attack (both as participants and as members of the Capitol police force), a 14-point drop from December 2020.
“The Jan. 6 attacks made it tragically clear that Americans need to come together to address the challenges of social fracture, division, and extremism in our society” said Vallone. “And veterans and military families need to be part of these efforts, working to build new relationships of trust and common purpose with other Americans.”
Reach Julia LeDoux at Julia@connectingvets.com.
Want to get more connected to the great resources Connecting Vets has to offer? Click here to sign up for our weekly newsletter.