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How many people knew that was a saying associated with white nationalist types and reacted to that? Would the result be the same if it were differently worded?
by api 4y ago
How many people knew that was a saying associated with white nationalist types and reacted to that? Would the result be the same if it were differently worded?
For example: If someone asked me something like “are you proud of Western civilization” my literal rational answer would be yes but then I’d stop and wonder if I was being asked to agree with a fascist dog whistle phrase. Modern discourse is a minefield of dog whistles that sound reasonable when interpreted literally but signal alignment with something.
The large not sure response makes it seem like people were confused or suspicious like that.
In any case what Scott said went beyond just calling BS on a poll and was rather unhinged and strange. He’s been off his rocker for a while so I’m surprised it took him this long to start getting dropped.
- uberman 4y agoI'm not condoning Adams nor have I ever heard this phrase used as a dog whistle. I am just pointing out that some polling organization did some work and found what to me was a surprising result. Dog whistle or not, I am personally surprised by that result. Just as I was surprised by polling that suggested almost 30% of Americans say it might be necessary to take up arms against the government.
- api 4y agoI’ve heard it from those circles. It definitely has a dog whistle feel to it. I agree that the poll results are wacko, but when I see nutty poll results I usually start asking questions about the poll. How was the question asked? How were respondents selected? Was there any attempt to filter for bias? Was it an online poll that a bunch of trolls decided to ballot stuff with a botnet? Online polls are trash unless great care is taken to filter results, and this takes some nontrivial infosec know how. Also remember that everything is click bait now. Media outlets have an incentive to structure polls to get goofy results to get clicks. If the results had been reasonable we wouldn’t be talking about this.
- freejazz 4y agoOh gosh - someone took a one-sided poll with zany results, I guess we need to have race war now!
- CrimsonCape 4y agoThis is the same reason why we see hot-takes like "Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner." From a historical, obvious it-happened naive point of view, yes absolutely it's 100% true. But the point of invoking that hot-take is to justify tearing down statues of Jefferson, and disrespecting Jefferson is itself is a symbolic act of attacking the validity of the founding principles of the USA. Also, it's intentionally meant to undermine people who have respect for Jefferson.
- dragonwriter 4y ago> But the point of invoking that hot-take is to justify tearing down statues of Jefferson, and disrespecting Jefferson is itself is a symbolic act of attacking the validity of the founding principles of the USA. Jefferson himself would probably be less upset by that than the secular religion worshipping the founders (and even if that waan’t a largely fictious image of them that relied on ignoring historical facts) that has grown up in place of critical political thought in this country.