But supporters of police abolition are the exception, not the rule, on the American left, according to research that my colleagues Matthew Feinberg, Alexa Tullett, Anne E. Wilson, and I conducted. In late October 2020, we asked more than 1,000 people in the United States whether they agreed that “police departments are irreversibly broken and racist, so the government needs to get rid of them completely.” Only 28 percent of the self-described liberals even somewhat agreed, indicating that this was not a solid consensus on the left.

Although far out of step with what most liberals actually thought, Carlson’s sampling of liberal views was emblematic of what conservatives believed about liberals. Conservatives in our sample estimated that 61 percent of liberals—more than twice the actual number—endorsed the abolition of law enforcement. This is a striking example of what plagues our politics: a false polarization in which one side excoriates the other for views that it largely does not hold.

Left-leaning readers might not be surprised that conservatives would accept as widespread a caricature of the radical liberal, given that they are so clearly blinded by racism or pro-police sentiment that they would excuse even the most unjust excesses of force. But wait—is this portrayal of conservatives accurate?

No. It isn’t.