71–80 of 83 posts
The US is using slave labor and at the same time sanctioning China for...using slave labor.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>But the Democrats' solution is to defund local PDs I think you should distinguish "democrats" the vast vast vast majority of which are conservative (in the sense of conserve), from far-left radicals. Even among the far-left, the idea of actually defunding police is essentially offered only by a fraction of pseudo-revolutionaries.
If I may play devil's public relation for a second, >Even among the far-left, the idea of actually defunding police is essentially offered only by a fraction of pseudo-revolutionaries. My twitter feed paints a different picture, I have a swath of people who would interpret the "defund the police" slogan as: "funding mental health, local services, and so on, through cuts to the police budget, military-style equipment,…
To put this into perspective:
The most recent study I've seen suggests that roughly 90% of tweets are posted by 10% of its users. Only about 20% of the American population is on Twitter in the first place, and that demographic is heavily skewed towards younger generations. Assuming those numbers are correct, 90% of Twitter's content is coming from 2% of the American population, with a heavy skew towards Left positions.
To contrast, the most recent survey of "defund the police" I can find online suggests that less than 18% of the population supports defunding the police (~30% of Democrats). And the percentage of that group that interprets "defund the police" in the literal sense of slashing police budgets instead of as a cultural/political signal is probably even lower.
People really don't realize how little Twitter represents reality. Part of this is the media's fault, part of it is the culture, part of it is... I'm not sure. But it's a really huge mistake to look at Twitter and think that it's a representative slice of mainstream opinion; if that was true then Warren would be president right now.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I may play devil's public relation for a second, >Even among the far-left, the idea of actually defunding police is essentially offered only by a fraction of pseudo-revolutionaries. My twitter feed paints a different picture, I have a swath of people who would interpret the "defund the police" slogan as: "funding mental health, local services, and so on, through cuts to the police budget, military-style equipment,…
> My twitter feed paints a different picture To put this into perspective: The most recent study I've seen suggests that roughly 90% of tweets are posted by 10% of its users. Only about 20% of the American population is on Twitter in the first place, and that demographic is heavily skewed towards younger generations. Assuming those numbers are correct, 90% of Twitter's content is coming from 2% of the American popula…
That seems in the right order of magnitude, for social media and web forums in general.
>Only about 20% of the American population is on Twitter in the first place, and that demographic is heavily skewed towards younger generations
So, I'll grant you that. My point really is about the interpretation of "defund the police" among people who subscribe to the idea, more than it is about the popularity of the movement.
>To contrast, the most recent survey of "defund the police" I can find online suggests that less than 18% of the population supports defunding the police (~30% of Democrats). And the percentage of that group that interprets "defund the police" in the literal sense of slashing police budgets is probably even lower.
Right, but wouldn't that stem precisely from the unclear communication problem I'm trying to highlight?
If "defund the police" is only interpreted as "slashing police budgets", then it makes sense that the idea would poll poorly, especially to non-Twitter users. Worded like this, the idea seems to target people who dislike the police more than people who like social services.
So the more important point, to me, is whether the public understanding of what the pollsters are asking matches how the movement wants to define itself.
Otherwise that would be a quite misleading and unhelpful misrepresentation of the idea, wouldn't it?
(Disclaimer: Hypothetically, I weakly support the idea, though I'm not a vocal supporter. I may have some biais.)
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Has slavery not been abolished in Northern America? If not, shouldn't slavery be a pretty hot political issue? Wikipedia says things like the death penalty still exists in half of US states, but I don't know the numbers for states using captive workers.
Prison labor is the rule rather than the exception. In many states, prisons are also run by for-profit companies. Occasionally it's mentioned on some show like Jon Oliver, but there isn't the political willpower to solve this clear abuse since it would cost more money.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> My twitter feed paints a different picture To put this into perspective: The most recent study I've seen suggests that roughly 90% of tweets are posted by 10% of its users. Only about 20% of the American population is on Twitter in the first place, and that demographic is heavily skewed towards younger generations. Assuming those numbers are correct, 90% of Twitter's content is coming from 2% of the American popula…
>The most recent study I've seen suggests that roughly 90% of tweets are posted by 10% of its users That seems in the right order of magnitude, for social media and web forums in general. >Only about 20% of the American population is on Twitter in the first place, and that demographic is heavily skewed towards younger generations So, I'll grant you that. My point really is about the interpretation of "defund the poli…
That's a good point that's worth making. And it's important to note that even if you go all the way to the police abolition movement, very few of those people aren't also talking about replacing police officers with extensive social services. So I think you're right-on with the idea that the movement is often characterized poorly.
But is it unpopular just because it's a communication problem? Maybe. In the sense that if you figured out the right way to present any policy idea it might become popular, I guess.
> wouldn't that stem precisely from the unclear communication problem I'm trying to highlight?
I don't know. I don't personally think the biggest reason defunding the police is unpopular is that a vocal minority is corrupting the phrase and giving people the wrong impression. I think that minority gets blamed for a lot of stuff, but it doesn't seem to me that the general public is really engaged with the conversation that much to begin with, and they don't really have much information about it at all, if they even care enough to look for it. And that a big portion of the public might reject the concept even if they understood it well, because they're fundamentally more pro-police than people on Twitter realize.
When I brought up "defund the police" as a cultural signal, what I mean is that as a mainstream topic of debate the phrase may be entirely separate and orthogonal to anything that even far-Left activists are actually saying. I'm not entirely convinced the movement's problem is messaging, because I'm not entirely convinced that most mainstream Democrats/Republicans are even on Twitter to hear the movement's message in the first place.
When I hear 18% of Democrats support the idea, I wonder how many of them support it purely in the sense of them saying, "I'm a progressive." Maybe part of them are interpreting it as slashing police budgets, some of them are interpreting it as redistributing resources, but I think that some of them just aren't interpreting it, the phrase is just something they think that progressives like.
I agree with most of what you're saying, but I think it's a little over-simplistic to say that miscommunication is the biggest reason why the idea doesn't have traction. Here's a weird fact: support for BLM as a movement among mainstream Democrats fell once protests calmed down, completely contrary to the narrative/fear that people had that looters would hurt support and that a calmer environment would be better for mainstream acceptance. To me, that suggests that messaging alone paints an incomplete picture of what's happening.
No labor shortage. It's a wage shortage. I'm certain if the pay went up, there would be applicants.
How does pay go up? You assume there's an infinite profit margin available for decreasing. Many industries operate at a few percent profit.
No labor shortage. It's a wage shortage. I'm certain if the pay went up, there would be applicants.
"No housing shortage. It's a rent shortage. I'm certain if the rent went up, there would be more rentals. " No, the point isn't that the housing shortage isn't real, it's that whether it's a labor shortage or a wage shortage is in the eye of the beholder.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The most recent study I've seen suggests that roughly 90% of tweets are posted by 10% of its users That seems in the right order of magnitude, for social media and web forums in general. >Only about 20% of the American population is on Twitter in the first place, and that demographic is heavily skewed towards younger generations So, I'll grant you that. My point really is about the interpretation of "defund the poli…
> So the more important point, to me, is whether the public understanding of what the pollsters are asking matches how the movement wants to define itself. That's a good point that's worth making. And it's important to note that even if you go all the way to the police abolition movement, very few of those people aren't also talking about replacing police officers with extensive social services. So I think you're rig…
That's a good question, and I'm absolutely open to the idea that it would be unpopular regardless. I do agree that the picture I have of the broader US demographic is probably very tinted by my online bubble, and probably not fully accurate :)
But, at the same time, I think I have plenty of room to argue just that.
>It doesn't seem to me that the general public is really engaged with the conversation that much to begin with, and they don't really have much information about it at all, if they even care enough to look for it
That's very possible, though as seen above with the topic of prison labor, it regrettably seems that public support for an idea has as much to do with how and how much the idea is broadcast. In the case of slavery, I hope I can safely say most people would declare they oppose it if called as-such on the evening news.
Despite the general public not being very involved in a potential 13th amendment reform conversation.
Back to 'defund the police', that is in fact, imo, a really bad slogan if the primary idea is funding alternative means of de-escalation. People, I think, can get behind allocating money to proposed solutions a lot easier than they can evaluate tradeoffs between budget cuts here and reallocation there, let alone when defunding existing solutions is the only part you hear about.
So I wouldn't bet on the concept itself being unacceptable. In other words, I think it's a lot easier to convince a half of a heterogenous group that X is a bad idea, and the other half a good one, than we might comfortably want to admit.
A small percentage of people will _not_ be swayed so easily, and these are the ones I trust to judge the idea on its own merit, which helps inform public opinion and sway the larger group. But these people may not hear about the idea, if you don't first broadcast it to the rest of the group under its (honest) "best-case formulation".
>because they're fundamentally more pro-police than people on Twitter realize.
I agree with that very much, but I also see people outside of Twitter that regularly seem to vote against their best interests, or almost contradict themselves.
Pro-policeness being part of how the idea is presented was the mistake. Ask people if they're pro funding for programs to "de-escalate violence" — or whichever other positive wording, and you might avoid that particular issue.
>I'm not entirely convinced that most mainstream Democrats/Republicans are even on Twitter to hear the movement's message in the first place.
Right. And this is where I make a cliché of myself by taking a stab at "mainstream media", and attempting to fit that under the broader umbrella of "miscommunication" =)
>I hear 18% of Democrats support the idea, I wonder how many of them support it purely in the sense of them saying, "I'm a progressive." >I think that some of them just aren't interpreting it.
Yes, and I think you might be right. But that seems to be a wider observation on the state of partisan politics.
>but I think it's a little over-simplistic to say that miscommunication is the biggest reason why the idea doesn't have traction
It probably can't explain everything, and maybe I have too low an expectation of the general public — I am almost making a caricature of them, as if they'll believe anything if you word it just right — and thank you for stressing that the public is in fact probably a lot more pro-police that I acknowledged. I can't definitely say which is the biggest factor, but I'd like to know, and I feel that the idea not being presented under its best light preventing us from knowing that, is a bit of a shame :)
>support for BLM as a movement among mainstream Democrats fell once protests calmed down
Yes. I'm also puzzled by that one. I feel the situation above may be a lot less complex than the BLM one (by virtue of _not_ having entered the public debate nearly as much), but I'd be happy to learn more about that.
Thanks for making some interesting points!
Love.
(note: I've edited this somewhat a few minutes after posting, apologies if you loaded the page in between. Bad habit I have...)
No labor shortage. It's a wage shortage. I'm certain if the pay went up, there would be applicants.
How does pay go up? You assume there's an infinite profit margin available for decreasing. Many industries operate at a few percent profit.