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I've got a lot of problems with this work, but I think I can best summarize my issues with the question: Who are the "Democratic elites"? A list of "Democratic

I've got a lot of problems with this work, but I think I can best summarize my issues with the question: Who are the "Democratic elites"? A list of "Democratic politicians" and quotes from them is given, but I'm curious if that's the full summation of who the "elites" are, or if there are other, thus far unnamed "elites". I can't think of a better example, but this reminds me of some of the papers on skull size from the late 19th/early 20th century (Mortonites? A bit fuzzy, it's been a minute). There was an undeniable correlation, but it took decades to undo the false causation that was implied (not directly stated in that paper or this one), and that damage still has not been fully undone, despite the heroic lifelong work of Franz Boas and others. This paper needed to discuss why racial framing isn't persuasive, and it doesn't do that. The whole, "We should trick white people into being kinder to minorities" argument is, frankly, insulting to white people, among many other not-very-noble things. White people should be able to hear arguments about racial inequality without losing their collective minds.

panopticon 6y ago
While I don't think the study is particularly strong by itself, your criticisms are kind of strange. I find that hard to believe that defining a roster of "Democrat elites" materially changes the survey responses and analysis. The only way this critique is relevant is if you reject the premise of the paper, but you don't seem to be doing that? Is that a critique of all correlative studies? What specifically is this paper doing that you think bridges on phrenology (or all that other brain-size hokum)? Why must this paper do that? There's a whole field of political science and opinion polling devoted to effective messaging, and they produce studies like this all the time. Maybe you find focus-group-shaped messaging "insulting", but that seems orthogonal to the goals of this paper. But maybe you can crack that nut and then we can purge like half of Twitter and most political talking heads ;)
- TameAntelope 6y ago
  I expect a paper to at least facially address potential confounding aspects, which the paper does, just not this (to me obvious) one. The issue as I see it is that this supposes there's a selective group of people setting an arbitrary agenda, whereas the reality is closer to the idea that the majority of Americans are expressing this point of view and these specific politicians are repeating it. They're committing the very sin they're trying to study, dividing the point of view into a class-based one, by claiming it's the "elites" holding the viewpoint, and not the people themselves. I would scrub the word "elite" from the paper, it creates needless tension and isn't accurate (or at the very least, define the term specifically). Additionally, I'd directly address the idea that these results could be confounded by latent racism, and I'd probably do that by introducing the concept in the introduction, and refer back to it in the conclusion. In other words, "Future research should investigate the causal mechanisms behind this." is not enough. Maybe end with this, but do more.
AnthonyMouse 6y ago
> The whole, "We should trick white people into being kinder to minorities" argument is, frankly, insulting to white people, among many other not-very-noble things. White people should be able to hear arguments about racial inequality without losing their collective minds. I think this is missing the problem with that framing. You're kind of assuming that the reason people oppose a bill purported to solve a problem for minorities is that they hate black people and want them to be miserable. Suppose you're a white fisherman just scraping by on the Gulf Coast. Things are bad. You wish something would change. The media reports there is a bill being debated in Congress. It's a thousand pages long and you don't understand it, but they say its purpose is to help black people. Gosh, you wish they would do something that would help you for once. Probably going to raise your taxes to pay for it, too. This bill sucks. Compare this to saying that the bill is to help working class people. Hey, working class, that's you! Finally! It's the same bill. It helps black people because they're disproportionately working class. To specifically tell other working class people that it's only meant to help someone else is how you destroy solidarity. It's what you do if you want them to fight each other even though they have a shared interest.
- TameAntelope 6y ago
  I hear you, and I can soften my tone somewhat, but I still think this is trying to advocate for some kind of "secret liberal agenda" (and I mean those words specifically, not as a dig), and I don't think that's a good idea. If you're trying to help black people, say that's what you're doing, don't "hide" your intention, if that's what your intention is. I think it's the responsibility of the white fisherman in your story to read the parts of the text and listen to the parts of the arguments that address him and his problems (and there are plenty), and to be glad that it also helps minorities. His failure to figure that out is his fault, not the people trying to help's fault (I'm not great at softening my tone, you may notice; I'm genuinely sorry about that).
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    > His failure to figure that out is his fault, not the people trying to help's fault So it's pretty unrealistic to expect every fisherman to go out and read every bill that comes before Congress. Members of Congress don't even read the bills. It's supposed to be the role of journalists to convey what the bills do to the public. And then that's what we're talking about. If the media is telling everyone that the bill is to help someone else and not you (with the plausible implication that it could come at your expense in a zero sum game), it can't be that surprising that this gets less support than putting more emphasis on the fact that it also helps you.

panopticon 6y ago

While I don't think the study is particularly strong by itself, your criticisms are kind of strange. I find that hard to believe that defining a roster of "Democrat elites" materially changes the survey responses and analysis. The only way this critique is relevant is if you reject the premise of the paper, but you don't seem to be doing that? Is that a critique of all correlative studies? What specifically is this paper doing that you think bridges on phrenology (or all that other brain-size hokum)? Why must this paper do that? There's a whole field of political science and opinion polling devoted to effective messaging, and they produce studies like this all the time. Maybe you find focus-group-shaped messaging "insulting", but that seems orthogonal to the goals of this paper. But maybe you can crack that nut and then we can purge like half of Twitter and most political talking heads ;)

TameAntelope 6y ago
I expect a paper to at least facially address potential confounding aspects, which the paper does, just not this (to me obvious) one. The issue as I see it is that this supposes there's a selective group of people setting an arbitrary agenda, whereas the reality is closer to the idea that the majority of Americans are expressing this point of view and these specific politicians are repeating it. They're committing the very sin they're trying to study, dividing the point of view into a class-based one, by claiming it's the "elites" holding the viewpoint, and not the people themselves. I would scrub the word "elite" from the paper, it creates needless tension and isn't accurate (or at the very least, define the term specifically). Additionally, I'd directly address the idea that these results could be confounded by latent racism, and I'd probably do that by introducing the concept in the introduction, and refer back to it in the conclusion. In other words, "Future research should investigate the causal mechanisms behind this." is not enough. Maybe end with this, but do more.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago

> The whole, "We should trick white people into being kinder to minorities" argument is, frankly, insulting to white people, among many other not-very-noble things. White people should be able to hear arguments about racial inequality without losing their collective minds. I think this is missing the problem with that framing. You're kind of assuming that the reason people oppose a bill purported to solve a problem for minorities is that they hate black people and want them to be miserable. Suppose you're a white fisherman just scraping by on the Gulf Coast. Things are bad. You wish something would change. The media reports there is a bill being debated in Congress. It's a thousand pages long and you don't understand it, but they say its purpose is to help black people. Gosh, you wish they would do something that would help you for once. Probably going to raise your taxes to pay for it, too. This bill sucks. Compare this to saying that the bill is to help working class people. Hey, working class, that's you! Finally! It's the same bill. It helps black people because they're disproportionately working class. To specifically tell other working class people that it's only meant to help someone else is how you destroy solidarity. It's what you do if you want them to fight each other even though they have a shared interest.

TameAntelope 6y ago
I hear you, and I can soften my tone somewhat, but I still think this is trying to advocate for some kind of "secret liberal agenda" (and I mean those words specifically, not as a dig), and I don't think that's a good idea. If you're trying to help black people, say that's what you're doing, don't "hide" your intention, if that's what your intention is. I think it's the responsibility of the white fisherman in your story to read the parts of the text and listen to the parts of the arguments that address him and his problems (and there are plenty), and to be glad that it also helps minorities. His failure to figure that out is his fault, not the people trying to help's fault (I'm not great at softening my tone, you may notice; I'm genuinely sorry about that).
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > His failure to figure that out is his fault, not the people trying to help's fault So it's pretty unrealistic to expect every fisherman to go out and read every bill that comes before Congress. Members of Congress don't even read the bills. It's supposed to be the role of journalists to convey what the bills do to the public. And then that's what we're talking about. If the media is telling everyone that the bill is to help someone else and not you (with the plausible implication that it could come at your expense in a zero sum game), it can't be that surprising that this gets less support than putting more emphasis on the fact that it also helps you.