Unbreaking America: Divided We Fall is chock full of nonpartisan analysis, factual statistics, and unbiased news sources. We're sourcing all the facts in the video below, based on when they occur in the film.
0:30: These days, just 2 percent of Americans trust that our elections work how they’re supposed to. - Gerrymandering: Why only 2 percent of Americans feel elections work properly. Avalanche Strategy & Change Research, as cited in The Hill, May 2019
0:36: Congress has an approval rating of about 20% - Congress and the Public. Gallup, May 1-12, 2019
1:39: But a recent Harvard Business School report by Professor Michael Porter and Kathrine Gehl shows that the relationship looks more like this. They found virtually no correlation between serving the will of the people and getting reelected. In other words, if our elected leaders do their jobs, they’re more likely to lose those jobs. - Why Competition in the Politics Industry is Failing America. Gehl & Porter, Harvard Business School, September 2017, May 2019
2:14: In 2019, both major parties publicly threatened to blacklist candidates and contractors who veered from the party lines. - GQ; Huffington Post; Politico, 2019
2:29: A full 61% of Americans want another option, but any third party or independent who runs is seen as a spoiler. - Perceived Need for Third Major Party Remains High In U.S. Gallup, September 2017
2:59: In 86% of house races, we now know which party will win the general election before it even starts. - Monopoly Politics 2018: Noncompetitive Elections, Advantaged Incumbents, Partizan Skew. FairVote, October 2017
3:11: Where as few as 14% of voters participate. - Turnout in this Year’s U.S. House Primaries Rose Sharply, Especially on the Democratic Side. Pew Research Center, October 2018
3:16: Primary voters tend to be more partisan than those who vote in the general. - Political Polarization in the American Public. Pew Research Center, June 2014
3:34: This graphic shows members of Congress who worked with the other party to pass a law in 1953. The gray lines represents their collaboration. The more lines you see, the more times they crossed party lines to pass a law. This is how it looked in ‘67. In ‘81. Look what happens by 1995. And by 2011 it represents where we are today. -The Rise of Partisanship and Super-Cooperators in the U.S. House of Representatives, Andris et al., PLOS One; Martino, April 2015.
4:19: For the first time since the Great Depression, life expectancy in the US is actually going DOWN, while it goes up in the rest of the world. - Smithsonian; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, December 2018
4:29: We were once ranked top in the world for Education. We’ve fallen to 27th. - Business Insider; Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, Sept. 2018
4:34: We can’t afford life-saving prescriptions, and medical bills are forcing families into bankruptcy. - This is the Real Reason Most Americans File for Bankruptcy. CNBC, American Journal of Public Health; March 2019
4:40: Almost HALF of American families can’t even afford basic necessities like rent and food. - CNN Business, United Way ALICE Project; May 2018
5:35: Get this: A Bloomberg news study showed that throughout American history, passing state laws has been the key to creating massive federal change. - This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind, Bloomberg, June 2015
6:40: Look, we’ve polled this law and it’s incredibly popular across party lines. More than 90% of us support the Anti-Corruption Act. - National Voter Survey, MFour Research/Tulchin Research, November 2013
6:52: It shows the percentage of a population required to create real and lasting change. Researchers looked at movements from all over the world and found that when 3.5% of a population actively engages in fighting for change, they win. Every single time. -Why Civil Resistance Works, Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan, 2012, 2013
7:13: In America, 3.5% is 11 million people — and it needs to be conservatives and progressives, together — America is roughly divided into thirds. That means no one group has the power to do it alone. - U.S. Still Leans Conservative, but Liberals Keep Recent Gains. Gallup, January 2019