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There's a basic misperception in how study is being interpreted. I don't think most Dems ascribe the horrific attitudes of the Trump admin/GOP leadership to "most Republicans." But right now power is monopolized by the GOP. So Trump's extremism is *public policy*, not "opinion."
You can't assign symmetry to the Democrat/Republican divide when political reality is asymmetrical. This bothsidesist analysis ignores the reality that what ordinary Republicans (beyond the Trump base) "believe" is meaningless given what Republicans in power are DOING.
"Democrats also believe that only half of Republicans believe that racism still exists. Actually, 8 out of 10 do." But the 2 out of 10 Republicans who believe racism doesn't exist—or even worse, now works in reverse—control the GOP.
So it's not a perception gap. It's a REALITY gap. And the question is whether four years of that reality gap will have permanently created a perception gap that prevents future collaboration (e.g. in Joe Biden's imagination). I think the answer may be yes.
