Data on the deep American political divide

The Center for Politics at the university of Virginia has collected interesting data on the divide. The research was intended to look for common ground and a basis for compromise. The researchers looked for insight about political and social-psychological motivations that drive both sides of the divide. The study comments:

In the study, the idea that the “government should work for people” surfaces as a potential compromise corridor for starting a conversation and finding common ground. The opportunity is to leverage this consensus to realize the positive change and action many Trump and Biden voters want.

But these positives are offset by the fact that Biden and Trump voters do not see how working with the other side fits into a bigger picture or translates into benefits for them. If anything, they view compromise as contrary their own priorities. They are convinced that the other side is pursuing an agenda that is contrary to their interests, principles, and values. They are convinced they will suffer personally if the other side has their way, despite the fact that many Biden and Trump voters want many of the same things from government.  

Widespread disillusionment with the other side, and perceptions of a system that is rigged to favor the wealthy and powerful, has undermined faith in our representative democracy: 

• On one hand, roughly 80% of Trump and Biden voters view democracy as preferable to any non-democratic kind of government.
• On the other hand, more than 6 in 10 Trump and Biden voters see America as less a representative democracy and more a system that is run by and rigged for the benefit of the wealthy.

For the foreseeable future, major compromise will be limited or nearly non-existent in view of deep distrust that decades of radical right anti-government and anti-democracy propaganda has fomented in the minds of tens of millions of Americans. Fomenting distrust is the point of that propaganda. It has worked especially well in the last ~5 years. The result will be more power and money flowing to elites at the top, while rights and wealth will ebb away from the rest of us.

Are perceptions of a system that is rigged to favor the wealthy and powerful mostly real, mostly false or mostly ambiguous?