A new poll seems to have shaken the media establishment. Turns out most Americans don’t want the things they want.
A WaPo/ABC news poll found clear majorities did not want to defund the police, pay reparations for slavery, remove statues of the Founders who were slaves holders, rename military bases or remove Confederate statues.
The breakdown looks like this:
For defunding, or reallocating funds from, the police, 55 percent of Americans oppose moving funds from police departments to social services — and 43 percent say they oppose it “strongly.” Interestingly, among independent voters 53 percent are opposed.
63 percent polled say the government should not pay reparations. 8 in 10 black people say the federal government should pay reparations while three-quarters of white people say the government should not. Among Hispanic people, 56 percent say reparations should not be paid. While 86 percent of black Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents support paying reparations to black descendants, that falls to 35 percent among white Democrats and Democratic leaners.
Regarding the Founders, 68 percent of Americans opposed and 25 percent in support of their removal. But while at least 7 in 10 white and Hispanic people are opposed, 6 in 10 black Americans support removing these statues.
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Half of Americans oppose renaming military bases currently named after Confederate generals. Here the divide is generational, with a majority of Americans ages 50 and older opposed and a plurality of those under 50 supporting it.
52 percent of Americans oppose removing public statues honoring Confederate generals. That includes an 80 percent majority of Republicans and 56 percent of independents in opposition, while 74 percent of Democrats support the removal of these statutes. Almost 6 in 10 white people, along with just over half of Hispanic people, oppose removing statues of Confederate soldiers, while over three-quarters of black people support their removal.
The poll was conducted July 12-15 among a random national sample of 1,006 adults, with 75 percent of interviews conducted by cellphone and the remaining 25 percent by landline. The margin of sampling error for overall results is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points; the error margin is 4.5 points among the sample of 661 white adults and 10.5 points each among the samples of 113 black and 117 Hispanic adults.
I’m not holding much hope, but maybe this poll will make the media realize that they’re stuck in a tiny little bubble. The coastal echo chambers they live in are limiting, and social media only amplifies that.