Went through the data on the website and wanted to post some more of the poll results here.
Who do you think should take the lead in responding to protests in Los Angeles? 56% State / Local || 25% Fed || 19% Not sure
Do you approve or disapprove of the Trump administration’s handling of deportations? 39% approve || 50% dissaprove || 11% Unsure
Do you believe the protestors are…? 38% Mostly peaceful || 36% Mostly Violent || 26% Unsure
Do you approve of deploying the national guard? 38% approve || 45% Disapprove || 17% Unsure
Also worth noting the phrasing of the question is very weird:
Do you approve or disapprove of recent protests in Los Angeles against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) actions?
I can easily see respondents saying they disapprove of the protests meaning they disapprove of the situation as a whole due to police response.
Only a third of Americans supported MLK Jr.
Bullshit. Polling is bullshit.
A few things to note.
Once again, the mass media are calling these “violent protests”, and tacitly giving cover for Trump despite no evidence that the protests have scaled to the point where the National Guard is even necessary. This will do little but embolden Trump to expand the use of these tactics to other cities, especially if he’s going to have majority support from the voting base.
2/3 of the voters are either “not sure” or are actively supporting ICE and the Trump administration. He is literally marching in authoritarianism to thunderous applause. Worse, only 58% of Democrats approve of the protests. Which means 42% are either indifferent or are actively supporting ICE.
The more Trump marches in authoritarianism, the more people on both sides of the aisle seem to be stepping aside and saying “Right this way, sir.”
It’s dumbfounding. But my expectations for people are low - they can be, and are, manipulated. Full stop. I’d love to fix that, but for the moment, this is a media problem. Clicks, views, engagement - all are supercharged by creating a perception of violence.
I’m sure many of these reporters are trying their best, but as you note, the simple recurring editorial adjectival choice of “violent” instead of “peaceful” can move the needle significantly. We’re walking on a razor’s edge and the smallest breeze is all it takes to lose the country - if only the mass media understood this.
Actually, they do understand it. They just don’t care, because they simultaneously profit off of it. CBS openly admitted it.
2/3 of the voters are either “not sure” or are actively supporting ICE and the Trump administration.
I don’t believe these are the only 2 reasons. Americans are very, very used to their soft comfortable lives, and right now they are desperate to hang on to them. We all know that American life might look a lot different a year from now, with widespread economic depression, hyperinflation, homelessness, joblessness, food shortages, brutal oppression from an authoritarian government, and more, and we are trying to avoid that as long as possible. When the majority of Americans are finally forced to defend themselves from the results of ignorant MAGA policies, it will get extremely ugly, and right now that is more than many Americans want to face.
We are in the Head-In-The-Sand stage right now, but that will change significantly over the next year or so. Things will get a little wild this summer, but next summer, as the MAGA Nazis get desperate in the lead up to the Midterm Elections in the Fall, things will get really crazy.
The media/news organizations haven’t been the fourth estate in thirty years. They are a propagandist arm of the state rather than a check to balance the state.
It doesn’t really matter the approval rates. How much of global population approves of what any activist does? What matters is what we think.
I question the validity of polls right now.
Who are these people that are responding?
I never been a part of any of these polls in the past 5 years.
I do not back what ICE is doing regardless of the protestors’ actions.
Period. The protestors do not validate ICE.
But ICE’s behavior does validate the need for protestation.
“In other news, propaganda works”
I know it’s more pleasant to think that this is the result of propaganda by a small number of awful people, but at some point we have to accept that we, as a species, are awful as a whole. Including ourselves.
I don’t think we’re awful as a whole. To some extent, I need to believe this, in order to avoid breaking down and killing myself. However, I do think it counts for something that there are so many people who want humans to be better, and are doing what they can. I think that resigning oneself to humans being awful will lead to a world with more awfulness.
And they’re all still failing at making us even a halfway respectable species.
I think a lot of awfulness is just the result of a poor internal model of the world. Intentionally spreading a poor model of the world is an effective propaganda strategy and often done. However it is difficult to tell apart people who have been lied to and people who have been unintentionally misled.
I think a great many people, myself included, have been misled about a great many things. Mostly not even out of maliciousness, but because reality is not as obvious as it could be. Our perspectives are often so limited. My takeaway from all this is to try and broaden my perspective, and when possible, give people the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they just need some new information, or the removal of a malign influence.
Humans like to think they’re cool.
Humans are not cool.
Deal with it.
I feel like that sometimes too :(
“Dear America: You are waking up, as Germany once did, to the awareness that 1/3 of your people would kill another 1/3, while 1/3 watches.”
- Someone on Twitter a few years ago with a spoof username based on Werner Herzog, but probably was not actually Werner Herzog.
The US is doomed.
I got a couple of random calls on our landline last week claiming to be from “a national polling company” and starting with a question about my age demographic instead of answering my question “which company?” I may be a boomer but I know better than to tell anything to a machine over the phone, so I hung up. I’d love to give the real pollsters a piece of my mind about the rise of fascism in this country but only the phishers want to hear from me.
Smash Fascism
Who did they ask? When did they ask? What questions did they ask? Without these answers, polls are useless…
Sadly, I would not be surprised to find the polls to be relatively accurate. I know plenty of Democrats who are low-key perfectly OK with Trump’s immigration policies. Especially since, as far as they care, it’s just affecting “those” brown people. The ones across the country. It’s not impacting their brown friends. Yet. It’s not impacting their community. Yet. So they’re OK with it. Democrats are far from being immune to racism.
Even up here in Canada, I’m getting similar vibes. Fucking disgusting, it is.
Although it wasn’t actually Herzog who said it, that quote about americans waking up to the fact that 1/3 of the population wants to kill another third, while the other third watches feels mighty true. I think what really woke me up to that sentiment was back during the 2016 primaries when my sister, a middle of the road democrat, told me ‘but I like my health insurance from work’ when we were discussing medicare for all. She didn’t even have particularly good insurance at the time.
Democrats… Too soft and impotent to commit to a fight, as usual.
Shit hasn’t hit the fan for anyone economically yet, and the media is busy painting it as violent protests.
Shithole country.
Why bother trying to save it.
It is, indeed. But maybe we can save it.
The question was why would we?
Besides the imminent death of humanity if the fascists win.
deleted by creator
