What do the polls show five years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001?

• Although Americans were resilient after the Sept. 11 attacks, many survey questions suggest the events of that day have left a deep impression on the American psyche. Roll Call contributing writer Donna Brazile captured the feeling when she told the Washington Post this weekend that Sept. 11 "shifted something inside the American people."

Resident Fellow Karlyn Bowman

This "9/11 hangover" may be contributing to the deep pessimism we see in a range of polling questions today, such as the popular right track/wrong direction question. Why the pessimism? Most Americans expect another attack, and they think the world is more dangerous than ever before.

• Responses to many questions about Sept. 11 have changed in the past five years, but one of the questions that hasn’t concerns the likelihood of another terrorist attack.

In an October 2001 Princeton Survey Research Associates/Pew Research Center question, 73 percent said there soon would be another terrorist attack in the United States. In August 2006, 67 percent gave that response.

In a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg question from late July 2006, when people were asked why there had been no terrorist attacks inside the U.S. since Sept. 11, 49 percent said it was because the terrorists were just biding their time. Another 24 percent said it was because U.S. government and intelligence activities had made it more difficult for terrorists to operate here.

In a 2005 Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll, just 24 percent believed that the war on terror could be won in their lifetimes; 62 percent said it could not.

When asked in July whether the world today is more dangerous than at other times in the respondent’s life, 76 percent told Gallup/USA Today interviewers that it was more dangerous.

The gender gap on questions such as this remains large: 67 percent of men, but 83 percent of women, described the world as unusually dangerous right now. In this poll, 51 percent of women, compared to 39 percent of men, said there would be a terrorist attack in the U.S. "in the next several weeks."

Another possible indicator of a 9/11 hangover comes from a Gallup/USA Today question about Sept. 11 movies. Only 12 percent said it was very likely they would go to see any of the movies that deal with the events surrounding Sept. 11, while another 21 percent said they were somewhat likely to see one. Even frequent moviegoers were not especially interested in seeing the films. Emotions may be too raw.

Here are some other polling highlights from the past five years:

• Virtually every poll that asks a direct question about whether the Bush administration has made the U.S. safer shows that people feel it has. Fifty-one percent in an August CBS News poll said the policies of the Bush administration have made us safer, and 29 percent said it has made us less safe. Sixteen percent said administration actions had not affected U.S. safety.
  
• Concern about civil liberties has risen in most polls. The polls suggest several explanations for rising concern. First, Americans’ familiar suspicions of federal government power have returned. Second, for some at least, fears of terrorism have been reduced. Third, actions by the administration have been considered objectionable by some Americans.
  
• Few Americans think the terrorists are winning, but they are not confident the U.S. and its allies are. In a Gallup/USA Today question from August, 35 percent of respondents said the U.S. and its allies were winning, 44 percent said neither side, and 18 percent said the terrorists. The August CBS News/New York Times responses were 35 percent that U.S. and its allies are winning to 41 percent that neither side is winning.
  
• President Bush and the Republicans have lost the strong edge they once had on handling terrorism. Still, in most polls, Republicans do lead Democrats. In a new PSRA/Pew question, 57 percent said they were concerned that if the Democrats take control of Congress this fall, they would weaken the country’s efforts to combat terrorism. Forty percent said they did not have those concerns.

For more polls on Sept. 11, visit www.aei.org/publicopinion3.

Truth Telling. In July, Harris Interactive asked respondents whether they generally would trust different types of people to tell the truth.

More than 75 percent said they generally trusted doctors, teachers, scientists and police officers to tell the truth. Toward the bottom of the list were journalists (39 percent), Members of Congress (35 percent) and--yes--pollsters (34 percent).

Pollsters suffered a particularly sharp drop on the truth-telling score since the question was asked in 1998. Back then, 55 percent generally trusted pollsters.

Karlyn H. Bowman is a resident fellow at AEI.