A piping new Harvard/Harris poll is out, and it has lots of fascinating stuff on a whole bunch of different levels. Let's dig in.
For starters, it turns out that of all the institutions they surveyed, Americans trust Amazon more than almost anything:
Hell, I don't even blame people for this. Amazon's service isn't as good as it used to be, but it's still pretty damn good. Also worth noting: the CDC remains pretty popular despite everything.
Next up, take a look at the wording of these two headlines:
In the past four months, GOP approval has risen four points. During the same time, Democratic approval has risen six points. So why the pretzel-bending effort to pretend that Republicans are making more progress with voters?
The next one is dedicated to Dave Roberts:
Among those surveyed, 42% think climate change is an immediate threat, but only 20% think it should be prioritized over higher gasoline prices. Sigh.
And speaking of oil, only 12% of Americans view Saudi Arabia as an ally while a full third view it as a straight-up enemy:
And yet, nearly half of all people still don't want to harm this "key relationship." Sigh again.
Check this out: 58% of Americans support President Biden's student loan cancellation, but only 46% think it was right for him to do it:
Apparently there are about 12% of Americans who favor this and don't give a damn if it was legally right or wrong. I'm surprised the number is this low—and I'll bet in real life it's actually much higher. I suspect most people never admit things like this even to themselves and accidentally told the truth this time only because they were taken by surprise.
Finally, here is public opinion on crime and wokeness:
I've gotten weary of progressives who insist there's no "proof" that slogans like Defund the Police have done the liberal cause any harm. This just defies common sense.
Now, I admit this poll result is not cast-iron proof, but I'd say it's pretty suggestive. And it doesn't make any difference if crime is truly up. Or if woke politicians really are at fault. Or that this result is probably driven by Fox News and Republican advertising. All of those things are part of the real world, and all of them have to be dealt with. Like it or not, this is how things are playing out, and it's done liberals no good.
Defund the police was never a Democratic slogan or policy. It is what FOX tells its audience that Democrats have already done. You want to promote FOX propaganda, keep talking about defund the police.
Please. What a crock. Democrats in 2020 were forced to run amidst charges of being pro "defund" no matter where the district or state. You think Rupert Murdoch confines his GOP agitprop to only those races where there's a geographic fit?
Sure, we can't exercise complete control over what the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy campaigns on, but we don't have to gift them with helpful issues on a silver platter.
Defund the police was a terrible slogan for liberals. Defund the FBI is a winning slogan for Republicans.
I wonder why? Perhaps someone could explain it in terms I could understand. You know, in black and white.
Everyone knows and probably respects at least a cop or two. Probably a lot fewer people know FBI agents personally
Plus the g-man motif is still pretty common in media. I suppose people regard the FBI as more inherently suspect, and not directly responsible for catching the everyday sort of criminals
Sort of fair in a historical sense, some of the shit they got up to under Hoover was pretty bad. But I would guess people only ever think of that subconsciously, if at all
Are you joking?
https://gop.com/video/7-minutes-of-democrats-saying-defund-the-police/
Might it have something to do with the GOP still being three points ahead?
What precisely would you have us do here?
The massive amounts of resources dumped into the police, their intense militarization, their ridiculous cowboy culture, their willingness to be fascist and capitalist shock troops, among a whole host of other pathologies, are huge problems. Many people on the left would like something done about those problems, and like all activists they often sloganeer.
As of right now, defunding the police, along with other policy prescriptions for dealing with the aforementioned problems, isn't that popular. That's why people keep yelling about it. That's how activism WORKS. You keep yelling and kicking up a fuss and making your case until you convince enough people to do something about it! Anti-racism used to be grotesquely unpopular; hell, it arguably still is. So were gay rights. So was basic economic justice. That doesn't mean you shut your mouth. That means you fight the battle.
If you want to argue "defunding the police is bad policy" then do that. But saying "it's unpopular" is bull. "It's unpopular" is a reason, if you specifically happen to be someone running for office as opposed to an activist or a voter or whatnot, not to run on something you happen to be in a constituency where it happens to not be popular... which is, in fact, something Democratic pols don't do. Biden didn't run on defunding the police; neither are, say, John Fetterman or Raphael Warnock. The people running on it are running on it in places where its either a popular enough sentiment or doesn't matter.
The Wisconsin guy, the Lt Gov up against Ron Johnson, said a few things to the effect of “defund the police” during the thick of it in 2020. That’s been really hurting him in an otherwise pretty winnable race
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/10/07/politics/kfile-mandela-barnes-signaled-support-abolish-ice/index.html
At the least it gave Johnson an opening to turn the race baiting up to 11, which he gleefully did. The last thing you wanna do is give a bumbling idiot like Johnson an easy out. But a record of calling for “reallocating police budgets” is basically the worst thing I can think of for a Wisconsin senate candidate
Yeah, the WI senate race (and NV) are gonna break our hearts.
🙁
I'd go for something like 'Police the Police'. Where's Don Draper when you need him?
"What precisely would you have us do here?"
Maybe not have it as a slogan? Maybe discourage actual elected grownups did run with it?
Lefties have a preference for screaming "No fracking!", " Cancel Student Debt NOW!", "Defund the Police", "Impeach the M*ther F&%$er", because I guess it makes you feel like you are actually accomplishing some, convinces you that you are morally superior to the "dupes of the donor class" or whatever the hell you call people who actually take government and governing seriously because we give a rats ass about actually making people's lives better.
Those of us who actually work within complex systems and try to effect change would really appreciate fewer immature "activists" pissing on us while actually accomplishing nothing except getting more fascists elected.
The Wokies are as irredeemable as the Seditionists. They (the Wokies) are the natural inheritors of SDS and the 1960's interminable arguments about "pure" Leftism. Bah-humbug. We do have a racist EuroAmerican population that have held down and looked down upon African Americans for 400+ years. But that doesn't excuse the emetic cant that comes out of college students' mouths -- ESPECIALLY "LGBTQ+" college students,
Hint, you whining lumps of neediness: people get respect when they say "Fuck You" to their tormentors and bloody their noses occasionally, not when they club up with other whiners and work the refs in the Administration building.
Wimpy, wimpy, wimpy.
"Wokies"??? That's just bizarre.
I find anyone using "woke" as an insult or pejorative is telling us far more about themselves than their intended insulted target; they get upset when they find out they can't insult people in public anymore without being called out for it. But hey, I'm sure throwing around insults is really going to change their minds.
Is it ever used NOT as a pejorative anymore? I haven't heard it as a positive in a long, long time.
A big part of the issue is that a lot of the wokesters with the largest Twitter followings, most-listened to podcasts and loudest megaphones in general don't elect Democrats for a living, and may care little (if at all) how their words are used by others. A lot of these people, in other words, are chasing books sales, writing gigs, podcast and radio ratings, web traffic, and donations. So the more viral their nuttier ravings, the better, as far as they're concerned.
I was listening to an NPR piece the other day and they were talking about the 15 year old black kid shot by police in Mississippi. According to the police, he was carrying a gun, walking with it, was ordered to drop it and did not and they shot him. I know the police often lie about these interactions, and so who knows what really happened, but what was odd was that the NPR reporter never mentioned that it is pretty much policy everywhere that an armed individual who does not respond to police orders will be shot.
So if I were a police officer or a conservative leaning person I would listen to that and say 'huh, there seems to be a presumption that the police did something wrong here when this is consistent OP'. NPR could have dug into that a bit but instead they interviewed a relative of the young man about the tragic nature of his death and his mother's heartbreak. It was tragic and moving.
But we all know why NPR didn't talk about the underlying facet of the problem--Police will shoot you dead if you have a gun and do not listen to them, and yes, this is way more likely if you black. NPR says nothing about this reality because some might interpret that as presuming that the young person was in some way responsible for their own death. So unless you know police OP in this country, you remain ignorant and if you do, then you assume that NPR is biased against police/conservatives.
Liberals are in a trap right now and 'Defund the police' is only one facet of it. It's EASIER to demonize the police than it is to talk plainly about the structural and policy problems that make it more likely that the police will shoot you dead. We show our liberal bona fides by labeling the police as racist and horrible and if the police respond to this by not rushing to a shooting scene for fear of being arrested themselves, then they are even more horrible. And what is the result? More dead black (mostly young) people, shot by one another. Oh and any decent person who might want to be a cop steers clear of the profession because the presumption is that they are all racist, fascist, jerks.
I do not know what the solution is here other than do not blanket label the police and every situation they are in as some manifestation of their racist, fascist, personality types. Our system is effed up and starts with the absurd amount of guns that the criminal and the insane can get. This puts the police in a horrible position in nearly every situation.
The problem that police have with racist, fascist personality types is the same problem the Catholic Church has with pedophile priests. They tolerate and protect them.
The problem that led to “defund the police” was that video recordings showed how often police lied when the said they said they were in danger. Nowadays there is more likelihood of such recordings existing. Note that when The FBI peacefully executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago Republican politicians faced no consequences for their calls to defund the FBI.
I remember it as mostly the loonies like MTG and co who called for the FBI to be defunded. Safe districts, MAGA fundamentalists, etc.
Is there anyone in a close race who has FBI whining on their resume? Can’t think of any
They’re all loonies now.
Agreed.
It is because of this that I personally support getting rid of all public service unions, including the teacher's unions. These days they mostly operate to protect bad actors. In the process, get the Republicans to agree to COL increases tacked to inflation and then pass whatever legislation is needed to drown that baby. The police unions are a blight and the teacher's unions are not that far behind.
Of course "Defund the police" was a terrible slogan. First of all, it is an unpopular sentiment as written (there's a reason that you can't point to a developed nation that has no police force). Second, there was no internal agreement about what the slogan meant. Anyone who claims that there were no people who actually wanted to defund or abolish the police is nuts - you could see the various different positions fighting it out in Minneapolis politics. And, guess what, the literal defund arm was not the popular choice in the election. Minneapolis police did pull back in some neighborhoods and tent encampments, and it was a very unpopular choice.
This slogan was a terrible idea, especially if what you really want is a shifting of law enforcement funding priorities. It's like deciding that you want to legalize gay marriage and instead of using the slogan "Marriage Equality" you go with "End Straight Marriage." That would have just opened the door for the small number of people who actually want to ban marriage to hijack the conversation.
One of the serious problems that the left/liberals have is that the activist wing does not care if Democrats win elections. That makes them willing to double down on extremely unpopular slogans, because purity is more important to them than power.
Meanwhile the far right wants political power so bad they're willing to try to violently take it.
Not only purity, its a great way to raise funds. And the sweet, sweet, elixir of self righteousness. You could apply these two activists on both sides but on the right the activists are Fox News.
"Amazon's service isn't as good as it used to be, but it's still pretty damn good. "
Maybe where you live. I cancelled "Prime" a few months ago, they've been annoying the shit out of me for a long time.
The main problem is utterly shitty delivery.
Scene: I live in an urban area, with a mail slot. There's nowhere to leave stuff, my front door opens on the sidewalk.
If I'm not home, they leave shit on the sidewalk, where it is, naturally, immediately stolen.
They stopped providing anything like a reliable estimate of when something would be delivered a few months back, so to avoid that, I have to stay home and alert, because they also routinely would fail to ring the doorbell.
And then sometimes they just don't deliver...
My final straw was waiting two days in a row for a tool, only to have it not arrive either day.
They're too flaky and annoying and gross, I'm done with them.
If ever were charts calling for a Drumline(trendline) those two would be they. But, the story said trendlines would imply would not be a happy one. At least if one includes the entirety of the data.
I am unaware of any big orgs or people YOU would interact with (certainly not us in the comments) who are arguing defund the police is harmless. The argument is that it's not the policy.
This:
"So why the pretzel-bending effort to pretend that Republicans are making more progress with voters?"
I was just talking with a friend regarding our anecdotal recollections of the 2018 midterms and the 2020 general election, and we each felt that in both cases the media was very much hyping the GOP chances for victory.
Despite clear indications more or less throughout 2018 that a Dem victory was on the way, the media continued to downplay their chances.
And in 2020, the hype about Trump's economy (before the pandemic really kicked in) was so over the top that I recall hearing a report about it on NPR radio (NPR!) that actually caused me to call someone up and rant about the NPR talking heads who were beginning to gush over trump like Fox news acolytes.
Naturally, the downbeat Dem coverage is going to continue, if not accelerate, in a midterm election in which they are the incumbents and are therefore expected to face losses.
But in general, my own memory leads me to believe there really is a strange editorial slant in favor of Republican election chances.
Republicans have spent generations demonizing liberals, Democrats don't have a bad word to say about conservatism.
Conservatism is poison, dogshit and corruption and has done nothing but harm at every point in history, and we should start with that as the basis of every advertisement and every policy, and if you don't you give the impression you're an idiot.
Curious how "Antifa" is an "institution", since it doesn't have a headquarters or a central organization or leadership.
Regarding Defund the Police, you gotta say it the right way. It's "Defund the Police and Make Mexico Pay for It." Worked for them, why not us?
re comments
"And yet, nearly half of all people still don't want to harm this "key relationship." Sigh again.
In the spirit of "I'm all for it, so long as it doesn't cost me anything"
Here's a piece that's 12 years old but it sure sounds familiar to me
https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/bs-xpm-2010-11-03-bs-ed-voters-letter-20101103-story.html