InsideOut: Interview with John Zogby

by Owen Lipstein / InsideOut Staff November/December 2008

If you’re wondering where America is headed, you might start by asking this man. Eminent pollster John Zogby is the president and CEO of Zogby International, whose media clients include Reuters, NBC News, MSNBC and C-Span, as well as a frequent guest on shows ranging from “Today,” to “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.” In his new book The Way We’ll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream (Random House, 2008), Zogby conducts thousands of surveys searching for clues. On the day of the Lehman Brothers Holding collapse, he spoke with us from his office in Utica, NY.

InsideOut: How do Americans traditionally react, in your experience, to the sort of scary news about financial doom we’re seeing in our headlines?

John Zogby: The response is layered because people are complicated. And so there is a layer of people—probably about a third—who respond with a sense of status anxiety even during boom times. And these are the people who are working for less, who have been the “victims” of a changed economy. Despite what the stock market may say, they’re concerned about whether they’re going to have health benefits or be able to afford a catastrophe.
There’s another layer of Americans who—and it’s a relatively small group—are on the other end of the spectrum. A Bill Gates may lose a staggering amount of money but still be doing OK, and will still be able to fund what he funds and do what he does. Life goes on.
And [then there are] people who have enjoyed decent portfolios on and off for the last few years, people who are not tied in with the old economy, but are knowledge workers—entrepreneurs of some sort—[and] those are the ones who are feeling it now, and for whom there will be destabilization. And the big question is, how will that middle respond politically?

IO: One of the meta-movements you describe in your new book is that of the new Americans, and their ability to live within limits as consumers and citizens. Can you talk about that?

JZ: Sure. The first source of that group is the people who are working at a job that pays less [than they used to make]. That’s about 27 percent of adults now. Predictably, these are the people…we read about when plants close, when we change from manufacturing to service, that sort of thing. And they’ve readjusted their lives. We see that in their spending patterns. And hence, the proliferation of Costcos and Wal-Marts, Dollar Generals and Christmas Tree Shops.


The second great source of the living-within-limits [group] are those on the other end of the spectrum who have achieved material success. But they have come to the realization that they don’t want to be defined by that anymore. [Success] really doesn’t ultimately bring what they’re looking for, which is some sort of fulfilling life.


And then in between, you have the demographic that’s mainly Baby Boomer in age, but a little bit older and a little bit younger—the first age cohort that will have 1 million of us reach the age of 100.


Add on to that…the whole question of energy and the environment and limits. There are those [who] don’t understand that Americans are ready to sacrifice. It’s not just the polls that are saying it. It’s the reality, too. And for the skeptics, I remind them: Do you remember the American people’s sacrifices in the 1970s? They turned their thermostats down, they drove less.


But when I started this business in 1984, a lot of the early work…I did was for communities that wanted to assess public opinion on issues like recycling, or litter or smoking. I remember being hired by a [community’s] planning department [and being told], “You know, you’re never going to get people to recycle.” They said they would, and they have. I remember when I was a kid driving out in the country, and it was just common that there would be a station wagon ahead of us dropping McDonalds’ bags and picnic bags, just out on the highway.

IO: Another movement, if you will, is that Americans seem more comfortable with diversity than ever before.

JZ: A lot of the structures of either segregation or discrimination have indeed broken down over the last couple of generations. Which is not to deny that it’s out there, but…to suggest that for one entire generation, and these are the folks under 30, there’s been a dramatic change in their experience. Sometimes I think we chastise them [by] say[ing], “Oh, you don’t remember what it was like in the ‘50s or the ‘40s.” Well, it’s true.

IO: And of course, you say the same is true for the gay/straight divide.

JZ: Yes. And you still have the conflict, even among young people, over issues like gay marriage. But what you do see is a sea change in attitude.

IO: What about the concept of
authenticity?

JZ: Americans are very dollar-conscious. They’re very value-conscious. So, my advice in [the book] to marketers: Sell the steak. Because selling the sizzle isn’t going to work. Sell the fact that purchasing this makes the world a better world. On the marketing side, a Silverado and a Hummer’s selfishness failed. But meanwhile Dove, because it’s authentic, succeeds.

IO: You talk about spiritual comfort. Can you describe that?

JZ: We’re already a religious nation. And so this has less to do with God, and more to do with wanting to live a genuine life, and wanting to make a mark. And understanding that you can’t take it with you, that the old rules—She who dies with the most things wins, [for instance]—mean less and less and less to Americans. And I know that that all sounds terribly clichéd, but we’ve asked a lot of questions over the years, [and] we see it as well in [Americans’] day-to-day lives. Volunteerism—at a time when the dollar is tight—is doing very, very well.

IO: What else can you tell us about those coming of age now?

JZ: Twenty-somethings are always twenty-somethings. They’re more concerned with the personal, the intimate self, how I look, who I love, what my job will be. And that’s the definition.


But by the same token, age cohorts are always defined by the historical era in which people come of age. And this group has come of age, really, with 50 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds having passports. Most of them have traveled abroad. Virtually all, in this country, anyway, have Internet access of some sort, and have begun the process, or are well into the process, of developing global networks. That, plus what they’re exposed to via the news of global sports, global fashion, music and so on, suggests the reason…they’re less wedded to old traditions of patriotism.
This group is as likely to say, “I’m a citizen of the planet Earth,” as to say “I’m a citizen of the United States.” And one-fourth of this group tell us that they fully expect to live and work in a foreign, exotic capital of some sort. They’re the most multilateral when it comes to foreign policy, and the most accepting of global and domestic diversity.


I got this fax several years ago from Bill Bennett [a conservative political commentator], who is a friend, and Frank Luntz, a colleague [and] pollster. And they had collaborated on a survey of college students, and the news release headline was something about how American college students do not believe that American culture is inherently superior to the cultures of Africa and Asia and Latin America. And I got a note from Bill saying, “Isn’t this outrageous? As a pollster, shouldn’t you comment?”
I wrote back and said, “Where’s the problem here? I kind of like what I see.”

IO: We’re a regional magazine published on the Hudson Valley, and this issue is on the future. You have some suggestions about old and new media. Can you tell us what you think works, and what doesn’t?

JZ: Well, there’s the opportunity to conduct messaging through viral media, the opportunity to reach people directly by the thousands—hundreds of thousands—even the millions. There’s also the opportunity to target and to see like-minded groups, clusters, and to be able to communicate with them and build a constituency around issues and concerns (and to do it at a fraction of the cost of even classified ads in your local newspaper).

Old media has a function. There is a need for professional journalism, to keep the blogs honest. But the professional media have to learn how to blog and team up with local TV, as opposed to fighting local TV. The only thing, of course, is that they’ve [also] got to figure out how to make money.

IO: I listened to your most recent book on audiotape, and even though it contains lots of grim information, your overall tone and conclusions are positive. Can you explain why?

JZ: Because we’ve had huge tectonic changes in the last 30 years. We’ve structurally changed our economy. And we’re in the midst of a technological boom that redefines a generation as three months. And I discovered—and this is not one or two or three sets of polls, this is over a long period of time—[that] people are adjusting quite well.