How free is the press in the United States? Your opinion probably depends on your political party

One major marker of the Trump II era so far is that Americans seem to have surrendered their perception of the world to their partisan identities. If the team you root for is in power, the world looks as rosy as can be. If your co-partisans are in opposition, however, America is going to hell in a handbasket. Versions of this phenomenon happen with both Democrats and Republicans, but during Trump’s time in public life, the swings have tended to be especially strong on the political right.

Back in November, I wrote about the strange ways partisan Americans evaluate two fundamental elements of daily life — the state of the economy and the prevalence of crime. Between 1999 and 2020, the gap between Republicans’ and Democrats’ views of the economy roughly doubled. And since the pandemic, consumer sentiment about the economy has become completely decoupled from the actual state of the economy.

The same happens with crime. Throughout the deep decline in crime since the early 1990s, Americans have been more likely to think crime is rising than dropping. But since 2020, the gap between Democrats’ and Republicans’ perceptions has become yawning.

Well, as of today, you can add another issue to this confused list: freedom of speech and of the press.

A new Pew study out today surveyed people in 35 countries around the world about how they see issues around freedom of expression — how important they think it is, and how much of it they think they have in their country. And while there are some interesting global trends to discuss, the chart that leapt out at me was one on page 14 of the report: asking Americans how “free” they consider speech, the press, and the internet here. Pew asked the same questions in both April 2024 and February/March 2025 — before and after Trump took office. The change in people’s perceptions is remarkable.

Among Republicans, the share who described the press as “completely free” shot up from 29% to 42% — while for Democrats, the number tumbled from 38% to 25%.

On freedom of speech, Republicans who saw complete freedom went from 19% to 35% — while Democrats dropped from 36% to 30%.

And when it comes to seeing “complete” freedom online, Republicans rocketed from 35% to 60%, while Democrats were basically flat (47% to 49%).

On each of these issues, both sides have changes they can point to to argue in their favor. Conservatives can say their expressive freedoms have been bolstered by Facebook deciding to stop fact-checking misinformation on its platform, for example. Liberals can point to people being deported for writing an op-ed, the censoring of web pages deemed too “woke,” the deletion of government data, the government shutdown of news organizations, the bullying lawsuits against news organizations, the banning of news outlets from the White House, the suppression of unfavorable coverage, the weaponization of the FCC, the proposed defunding of public media, the ban on spending federal dollars on news, the conversion of the White House briefing room into a place for beanie-laden Russia-funded podcasters, and, I’m sure, a few others I’m forgetting.

You can probably guess which of those two lines of argument I find more reasonable — but even if you disagree, it’s remarkable just how much “my guy’s in power” and “everything’s turning up roses” have come to align in today’s politics.

A few other highlights from the study, which you can find here:

• There’s a significant disconnect between the importance people place on free expression and how they perceive its reality. Across the 35 countries, 61% say press freedom is very important, but only 28% consider their media completely free. There’s a similar gap for free speech: 59% consider it very important, but only 31% say speech is completely free in their country. (The gap is smaller for freedom online — 55% vs. 50%.) Pew labels these “freedom gaps” — though I’d argue the variance between saying something is “very important” and “completely free” makes direct comparisons difficult.¹



• In most countries, a majority of those surveyed described “made-up news and information” as a “very big problem” in their politics. Overall, concerns were highest in middle-income countries (Bangladesh, Colombia, Peru, Thailand), but were still high in many higher-income countries (Chile, South Korea, Greece, France). And countries with a bigger perceived fake news problem are also the ones where people are less satisfied with their democracies.



• In most countries, people with more education are more likely to say press freedom is important. And Latin American nations had generally lower opinions of how much freedom they enjoy.
• In these countries, more than 90% of those surveyed said it is “very” or “somewhat” important that “that the media can report the news without state/government censorship”: Sweden (97%), Greece (97%), U.K. (94%), Canada (93%), Spain (93%), Hungary (93%), U.S. (92%), Poland (92%), Netherlands (92%), Australia (92%), Germany (91%), Turkey (91%), Argentina (91%), and Chile (90%). (The median worldwide: 84%.)

1. These numbers are all the medians among the 35 countries surveyed, not an average, since populations and number surveyed vary.