🏁 Axios Finish Line: You're not nuts

3 surprising stats | Monday, March 07, 2022

View in browser   Presented By Emergent BioSolutions   Axios Finish Line By Mike Allen, Erica Pandey and Jim VandeHei ·Mar 07, 2022 Welcome to the debut edition of Finish Line, coming your way Monday-Thursday evenings. 💡 What we're up to: The news too often is deflating and ephemeral. So we want to help end your day with a focus on larger trends, life hacks and wise lessons that matter beyond the moment. We'll bring you insights from our conversations with CEOs, inventors, investors and educators — leaders at all levels — offering up healthy, helpful ideas to sleep on. Please give us unvarnished feedback — and suggestions! Smart Brevity™ count: 424 words ... 1½ min.     1 big thing: You're not nuts Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios   Think about it: Most people you meet in everyday life — at work, in the neighborhood — are decent and normal. Even nice. But hit Twitter or watch the news, and you'd think we were all nuts and nasty.  Why it matters: The rising power and prominence of the nation's loudest, meanest voices obscures what most of us personally experience: Most people are sane and generous — and too busy to tweet.  Reality check: It turns out, you're right. We dug into the data and found that, in fact, most Americans are friendly, donate time or money, and would help you shovel your snow. They are busy, normal and mostly silent. These aren't the people with big Twitter followings or cable-news contracts — and they don't try to pick fights at school board meetings. So the people who get the clicks and the coverage distort our true reality.  Three stats we find reassuring:  75% of people in the U.S. never tweet. On an average weeknight in January, just 1% of U.S. adults watched primetime Fox News (2.2 million). 0.5% tuned into MSNBC (1.15 million). Nearly three times more Americans (56%) donated to charities during the pandemic than typically give money to politicians and parties (21%). The bottom line: Every current trend suggests politics will get more toxic before it normalizes. But the silent majority gives us hope beyond the nuttiness. Share this story.     A message from Emergent BioSolutions We Go to create a world that's prepared and protected     Emergent maintains a critical role in the ongoing opioid crisis. We're developing emergency rescue medications that can help reverse an opioid overdose. It's just one of the ways we defend people from things we hope will never happen. Learn more about Emergent's protections.     📈 Stat worth sharing Reproduced from Gallup. Chart: Axios Visuals Independents would be the biggest party: In Gallup's 2021 polling, 29% of Americans identified as Democrats ... 27% as Republicans ... and 42% as independents.     🔮 Ask us anything We'd love to include you in our nightly conversation. Ask us anything about trends, health or confusing topics in the news. We'll share our own thinking — or get you an answer from outside experts. Just reply to this email, or drop us a line at FinishLine@axios.com. If we can credit you in the newsletter, please include your name, occupation and city.   Thanks for reading. Please invite your friends to sign up here. Like this email style and format? It's called Smart Brevity®. Over 200 orgs use it — in a tool called Axios HQ — to drive productivity with clearer workplace communications.   Axios thanks our partners for supporting our newsletters. If you're interested in advertising, learn more here. Sponsorship has no influence on editorial content. Axios, 3100 Clarendon B‌lvd, Suite 1300, Arlington VA 22201   You received this email because you signed up for newsletters from Axios. Change your preferences or unsubscribe here.   Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up now to get Axios in your inbox.   Follow Axios on social media: