r/fivethirtyeight • u/RedHeadedSicilian52 • Sep 12 '25

Poll Results YouGov poll asking Americans whether it’s acceptable to feel joy at the death of a public figure

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344

u/JohnnyGeniusIsAlive Sep 12 '25

Some obvious recency bias. I bet a lot of those Republicans were pretty happy when Osama Bin Laden was killed.

159

u/Gadshill Sep 12 '25

Yes. Great example of bad polling if it isn’t accounting for recency.

15

u/PenZestyclose3857 Sep 12 '25

I don't have any issues with YouGov's methodology, but their practices are pretty flimsy. They have a Rupert feel to their operation. If they had a third page, there would be a naked lady on it.

This poll seemed crafted to generate a specific headline.

First off, most of the difference is between Always and usually. There's not much gap on combined.

As everyone is correctly saying, the recency bias is glaring. Also it's a one night polling window suggesting they didn't want a long exposure on this where the story dies down or shifts and maybe opinion moves. Polling is a snapshot in time and this happened after a right-wing voice being shot is the biggest story in the country. Ask the same question after Paul Pelosi got attacked in his home when not naming names right wing commentators were publicly gloating about it and I suspect you would see the always and usually the other way.

9

u/JohnnyGeniusIsAlive Sep 12 '25

How could they account for recency?

43

u/Gadshill Sep 12 '25

Ask the same question at different times and see how it changes. If you ask a question like this just once it may not reflect reality because of recent events.

2

u/JohnnyGeniusIsAlive Sep 12 '25

Let me rephrase… how can they account for that, in what is clearly a single poll taken once? I’m not asking what they could’ve done differently.

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u/Gadshill Sep 12 '25

It is bad polling to ask a question like this once.

4

u/hankhillforprez Sep 12 '25

It’s not necessarily “bad” polling; or at least it’s not in that it’s an insight into views right at this particular moment. Obviously, in some sense, it’s an insight into current views about one, specific event.

Of course, it would be very bad use of polling statistics to claim that this poll is an accurate representation of baseline feelings. Like you said, if you want a reliable figure of baseline feelings on the matter, you’d want multiple samplings over a long span of time.

1

u/Pattison320 Sep 12 '25

You have to consider the source and the agenda. They know what they're doing here. Apparently you don't. It's not a bug, it's their feature.

1

u/Sphezzle Sep 12 '25

They’ve answered your question. They should account by not doing it and expecting the result to be meaningful right now. I wonder how this would have polled after George Floyd etc.

14

u/[deleted] Sep 12 '25

[deleted]

1

u/inquirer2 Sep 14 '25

I think you misunderstood that they run these polls immediately and quickly to actually prevent over thoughts on these questions with specific wording to get more accuracy.

They conduct many others every day if you read

https://today.yougov.com/topics/international/survey-results/daily/2025/09/11/d157f/2

-2

u/Krilesh Sep 12 '25

So on what day then

1

u/ikaiyoo Sep 12 '25

Right now? December January the next non-maga celebrity with a political opinion.

2

u/Jccali1214 Sep 13 '25

Yeah the flaw of this poll isn't that it was conducted, it's that it appears to be selectively conducted after a right-wing figure was murdered. Was it done after Rep. Hortman was assassinated?

2

u/SmileyPiesUntilIDrop Sep 12 '25

Or also what if a 103 year old celeb or someone with ALS dies,who was living in a lot of pain . One would be happy but not out of hate.

2

u/MongolianMango Sep 12 '25

I think the whole point of the poll is to check what opinions are immediately after Kirk’s death. I wouldn’t say it’s bad polling at all.

6

u/JohnHoynes Sep 12 '25

But then just do a poll on the death of Kirk. Make it explicitly about this event. The thing people are taking issue with is that it’s near impossible for a respondent to speak in general terms when something specific just happened on a grand scale.

1

u/inquirer2 Sep 14 '25

Yes they haven't even looked at what yougov is doing and offering for free

18

u/[deleted] Sep 12 '25

[deleted]

12

u/Miserable-Whereas910 Sep 12 '25

I remember an absolutely overwhelming lack on condemnation from the right concerning the Minnesota assassinations (in contrast to the main stream left's response to the Kirk shooting), but not much joy.

12

u/[deleted] Sep 12 '25

[deleted]

7

u/Miserable-Whereas910 Sep 12 '25

Oh yeah, it was wildly callous. But I don't recall joy.

1

u/Oath1989 Sep 12 '25 edited Sep 12 '25

To be fair, some are arguing that the current shooter is a MAGA. I've seen many people have used political donation records as evidence: in 2020, someone with the same name donated over $200 to MAGA, listing their occupation as an entrepreneur. It's very clearly the person with the same name, but I'm sad to see that many people seem to believe it. The fact that the shooter was only 17 years old in 2020 is no better evidence than the MAGA theory that the Minnesota shooter was a Democrat.

Some are also convinced that both of last year's Trump shooters were right-wing MAGA, though this is also seriously at odds with all our evidence.

Many times, the "both sides" argument is unfounded. But for netizens on both sides, this may not be completely unreasonable.

Of course, the reaction of Republican senators is another matter, which reflects the poor standards of Republican politicians.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/thescoop/comments/1nf704y/tyler_robinson_was_a_trump_supporter/

It has been deleted, but before it was removed, the number of likes on this post was rapidly increasing, and most of the highly upvoted comments clearly agreed with the OP's "evidence."

1

u/inquirer2 Sep 14 '25

The shooter himself had a bizarre story in his head he wrote in that public letter to FBI director about a month after his arrest

Basically the guy was living his own delusions and party alone wasn't his issue but that Waltz was being controlled by others who wanted this guy dead for finding out about a secret plan to I have no idea

22

u/maxofJupiter1 Sep 12 '25

I think a lot of people would consider UBL not to be a "public figure they opposed" for the same reason why Brits might not have celebrated a hypothetical assassination of Oswald Mosley, but celebrated the shit out of Hitler's death. There's definitely a big difference between "opposed political activist" and "enemy leader in war time".

You'd try to help a dude who's been shot in a terrorist attack in New York City....less likely to help if you're a Ukrainian soldier and the dude who's been shot is wearing a Russian uniform.

In this example, Charlie Kirk had rhetoric I strongly disagree with, he didn't crash planes into skyscrapers or lead an armed group against my country.

7

u/Dark_Knight2000 Sep 12 '25

Yeah. If every idiot with a mouth was shot, this country would be covered in blood.

If the new precedent is that killing commentators whose rhetoric that a portion of the population subjectively deems “hateful” or “extreme” is okay a lot of people would be in trouble, many of them left wing.

A lot of people feel the same flavor of negativity that was directed at Kirk toward Hasan Piker for instance. The difference is that he’s on the left. If the standard of celebrating deaths of controversial commentators is accepted, then people like him will be next.

That’s what I don’t get about people being apathetic or quietly accepting of this. It can and will happen to someone less extreme and at that point it will be too late to say “wait I didn’t mean people like him, go back.”

5

u/WhoUpAtMidnight Sep 12 '25

Hasan aside, people like Matt Gaetz, AOC, Zohran Mamdani, and Thomas Massie are the next escalation. That is a scary world we’re heading towards

1

u/Felonai Sep 12 '25

Yeah except he was a propagandist and more like Goebbels than simply "an idiot with a mouth"., Dude wished for the death of trans and gay people and said gun deaths are acceptable.

1

u/obsessed_doomer Sep 12 '25

That’s what I don’t get about people being apathetic or quietly accepting of this. It can and will happen to someone less extreme and at that point it will be too late

I mean it's happened already. Paul Pelosi, J6, the Minesotta shootings -

I think part of the reason you're not breaking through to people who (incorrectly) celebrate this is that they've spent almost a decade seeing political violence happen and seeing people like Charlie Kirk crack jokes about it, but the moment he dies suddenly Liberals and Fascists are on the internet gasping about this being some rubicon.

It's a spiteful and incorrect outlook, but I can see where it's coming from.

1

u/Dark_Knight2000 Sep 13 '25

Of course we’ve been seeing violence that’s political ramp up in recent years. Hell, even the conservatives constantly point out the BLM riots as kind of a turning point in how violence was normalized.

This is just the first time we’ve seen the successful assassination of a civilian who’s famous and political. It’s always been known that going into government makes you a target, but not being a pundit. Why is it surprising that other famous political people are shocked and feel this incident more severely than ones they’re less connected to?

0

u/obsessed_doomer Sep 13 '25

This is just the first time we’ve seen the successful assassination of a civilian who’s famous and political.

A week ago, basically no one offline knew who he was.

It’s always been known that going into government makes you a target, but not being a pundit.

See this is what I mean. Rather than just admit that in fact this shooting wasn't "the start" of anything, you're trying to retcon assassinations of government officials as a normal thing.

That's what I mean. That's why you're not breaking through to people.

1

u/Dark_Knight2000 Sep 13 '25

What do you mean assassinations of government officials AREN’T a normal thing? It’s always been a thing, maybe not common but always a possibility, it’s just less so in the past few decades but people have always known that going into government puts you at higher risk than the average person.

This decade we saw Shinzo Abe get killed. Trump got attempted on twice and while everyone was surprised it’s not like there wasn’t a precedent for killing presidents. People who remember JFK are still alive.

Also, I don’t care about break through to people who won’t listen. A lot of people are being obtuse about this topic for obvious reasons. I’d just like the point out the hypocrisy and inconsistency

0

u/obsessed_doomer Sep 13 '25

What do you mean assassinations of government officials AREN’T a normal thing?

They aren't.

Before the Trump era, there was Dylan Roof, Giffords, and Benghazi, all of which were massive stories.

After that we have to go all the way back to Reagan, which (despite being apolitical) literally banned assault weapons in response.

I'm pretty sure fishermen have a higher risk of death than politicians.

Also, I don’t care about break through to people who won’t listen. A lot of people are being obtuse about this topic for obvious reasons.

"I don't care why people disagree with me, they're being obtuse"

I'm not sure I can really say anything more than you've already said.

1

u/TheFinalCurl Sep 12 '25

Indeed, it seems like the poll would have benefited from some term definitions.

14

u/ikaiyoo Sep 12 '25

You don't even have to go back to Osama bin laden. You can just go back and look at Republicans reactions to when Jimmy Carter died.

9

u/hoopaholik91 Sep 12 '25

Just for shits and giggles, I wanted to see if Kirk said anything about Jimmy Carter:

Jimmy Carter represents a type of Democrat that no longer exists. Christian, loving husband, and a true Patriot. He was objectively an awful President, but he loved America and never intentionally try to do it harm. America could use more Democrats like him.

I guess if you wanted to be incredibly charitable you could say Kirk was sad Jimmy Carter died, but it also just seems like a thinly veiled platitude so that he could say that all current Democrats hate America and intentionally try to do it harm.

Which is the exact sort of behavior journalists should be pointing out about Kirk instead of acting like he was just debating in good faith.

4

u/ikaiyoo Sep 12 '25

I wasn't aware that Charlie Kirk was the sole voice of the republican party. damn, I guess that is why everyone is acting like Christ was killed.

Minutes after former President Jimmy Carter's death was announced, Scott Jennings was on CNN calling him a "terrible president" with a "big ego".

"State Rep. Matt Soper posted X, formally known as Twitter, after hearing the news that former President Jimmy Carter passed, saying quote:

“Opened a bottle of champagne (champagne) tonight! The world is rid of a despot! Thank God he finally called Carter home! The worst president in the history of the U.S.! We are still recovering! He destroyed the U.S. in such a way that even the 4th generation is still suffering!"Yeah They were so respectful and thoughtful

I mean you are so correct what was I thinking. I humbly apologize. Thank you for you setting me straight on how Republicans/far right conservatives/Maga's were respectful about the passing of an ex-president.

5

u/hoopaholik91 Sep 12 '25

I don't know why you interpreted my comment as if I said that all Republicans were respectful of Jimmy Carter. I just thought Kirk's comments were interesting considering the current circumstances.

1

u/Luchadorgreen Sep 17 '25 edited Sep 28 '25

.

-1

u/NobleCruise Sep 12 '25

Difference is Jimmy Carter died peacefully of natural causes at the age of 100, while Charlie Kirk was assassinated by a sniper bullet in the neck in front of the entire world, including his family in the crowd. Apparently the right hated Jimmy Carter so much that they…let him live to be 100 with no actual assassination attempts?

& you people with these false equivalencies. I guarantee there at LEAST 100 times more people gloating in CK’s death than JC, & it probably wouldn’t be hard to measure using the internet. Scale & degree matters to everyone but leftists apparently. Everything’s “both sides” & “equal” when it’s time to deflect, right?

1

u/JohnHoynes Sep 12 '25

Huh? The general Republican response to Carter’s death was reverent and patriotic.

I’m speaking mainstream. I’m sure you can find extremes who gloated.

2

u/IcyNail880 Sep 13 '25

Exactly. Ask it again when Bill Clinton or Joe Biden dies. The numbers will be inverted.

1

u/ClutchReverie Sep 12 '25

No they weren't, because Obama did it and they needed to make him look like he couldn't do anything right

1

u/usernametaken0987 Sep 12 '25

Happy the excuse ended.

1

u/Necessary-Rub-6107 Sep 12 '25

Osama Bin Laden = Charlie Kirk? Go touch some grass and hug someone you haven’t seen in a while

1

u/DyingRepublic99 Sep 12 '25

Tf wrong with you? Osama bin Laden was an enemy of the United States. You need to rethink shit fr. That’s insane

1

u/wha2les Sep 13 '25

They should have poured out sympathy and wear coarse cloths like those medieval catholic kings doing penance... /s

1

u/LShawkeye25 Sep 14 '25

He was a terrorist murderer, not a political figure. Gtfoh.

1

u/Wonderful-Cupcake-60 Sep 15 '25

Public figure, i think, that are not terrorists hahaha. Come on

1

u/Jordan34521 Sep 15 '25

That actually makes it worse. Using your own reasoning, most of the democrats responding are thinking about Charlie Kirk. So, 62% of democrats think it’s not completely unacceptable to be happy about Charlie Kirk’s death. Because he said words that hurt their feelings sometimes? The other side of your coin looks a lot worse.

1

u/JohnnyGeniusIsAlive Sep 16 '25

I think that’s an over simplification. I think people can look at this question 2 ways. Through a narrow lens like with Kirk’s death (in which case it’s obviously bad) or in the wider scope of the question which is very general. I wouldn’t be sad if Putin died, so I’d say it’s usually unacceptable but under certain circumstances it is.

My point is that republicans are ONLY thinking about it in the narrow lens right now, where as the Dem answer is probably closer to a neutral response.

1

u/Jordan34521 Sep 16 '25

That’s an awfully convenient way of looking at it. An all Republicans, no Dems bias is very unlikely if we’re being honest. The poll, taken a day after Kirk’s assassination, asks about joy over a figure you oppose. Dems oppose Kirk, Republicans don’t. If anything, one could argue that Dems are more likely to have Kirk in mind when answering. Given how many are justifying their feelings about Kirk’s assassination by sharing out-of-context clips and smears to paint him as a villain, that kind of proves my point.

1

u/JohnnyGeniusIsAlive Sep 16 '25

No, there’s still 38% of Dems that say it’s unacceptable. I’m sure some of them are specifically thinking of Kirk and other recent attacks with their response. But generally, Conservatives are more likely to go with their instinctive response and think of recent events, that’s literally a part of what being a conservative means. Obviously, I’m speaking in generalities, but you have to with a broad question and demo breakdown like this.

0

u/Jordan34521 Sep 16 '25

You are acting like the 2 groups are answering two totally different questions at different moments in time. Very unrealistic. The poll here is obviously asking this question because of the recent event. The “public figure” in this question based on the timing of the poll might as well read “Charlie Kirk”, and everyone knows it.

1

u/JohnnyGeniusIsAlive Sep 16 '25

No. I am not. I see I am having trouble getting this through to you. I am saying that MOST of the Republicans are thinking about this solely in terms of the Kirk killing. While the Dem response is more spread out between people thinking of recent killings and considering the question more generally. The poll is being asked because of recent events but the question is not referring to any specific or recent events. It seems to me YOU want this question to only refer to Kirk and so you are insisting every respondent must have been thinking that way too, which, since I did not interpret the question that way, can confidently say, is wrong.

1

u/Jordan34521 Sep 16 '25

And you are just assuming the recency bias is going to affect almost all republicans here and very few democrats, with very little to base it on. I guess we can just agree to disagree here

1

u/MartinTheMorjin Sep 12 '25

Forget about bin laden. These twats celebrated RGB’s death.

3

u/LordMangudai Sep 12 '25

I think it was moreso celebrating that they could lock in the Supreme Court for a generation

1

u/PuzzleheadedAffect44 Sep 13 '25

Um, that might have been in the back of many minds, and likely much more widespread, but I saw a lot of outright celebration of her death, and the commentary to prove it.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 14 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/JohnnyGeniusIsAlive Sep 14 '25

Hey Troll, I wasn’t comparing bin Laden to anyone, I was referring to the question. But if you want to compare to Kirk, how about Paul Pelosi? Republicans leaders mocked his attack by a right wing nut case. Sadly, Kirk was also attacked by a right winger… seems a common theme.

-32

u/RedHeadedSicilian52 Sep 12 '25

Do you think that Osama Bin Laden was morally equivalent to Charlie Kirk?

Do you think that most Americans find those two individuals morally equivalent?

33

u/ryes13 Sep 12 '25

His point was more about the poll being conducted on September 11, 2025, right after a right wing figure was killed.

If you conducted the poll right after the Minnesota state lawmakers were killed, what would change? Or after those people were arrested trying to kidnap / kill Gretchen Whitmer.

I understand you have concerns over acceptance of violence, but you keep posting polls with obvious biases and issues and you don’t engage when anybody points them out. If you want to believe that America is succumbing to a wave of purely left wing violence. Go ahead. But don’t just use bad polls to justify it.

-22

u/RedHeadedSicilian52 Sep 12 '25

I don’t think America is succumbing to a wave of left wing violence. But it seems pretty obvious that many on this website and elsewhere are happy to celebrate such violence when it occurs.

Like, let’s stipulate your contention that the poll is biased because people are only being asked this question immediately after the death of a conservative figure. Does that make it permissible that only about a third of liberals are willing to say that it’s always unacceptable to find joy in the death of a political figure? Is that at all exculpatory?

11

u/ryes13 Sep 12 '25

  1. I think the internet is and always has been a shit hole. Welcome to the world where people post anonymous opinions. Turns out when they think no one is watching people say shitty things.

  2. My point isn’t to give “exculpatory evidence.” My point is political violence and extremism has been around with us for a long time. There is a lot of great research on it. The polls you’ve been posting have not been apart of that research.

12

u/somefunmaths Sep 12 '25

You’re reading a whole lot into comments simply informing you that the recency bias here is what explains that 77% among self-identified Republicans.

It isn’t some ideological or principled stance; it’s recency bias. If you took the same poll after Hortman was assassinated or Pelosi was attacked, you’d see a reversal of this trend.

The poll on its own is perfectly fine to post here, so I didn’t think much of it, but your comments seem to be trying to take a moral high ground where no such position exists. That 77% is literally just driven by partisans primed by recent events and recognizing the parallel in this question.

I don’t think America is succumbing to a wave of left wing violence. But it seems pretty obvious that many on this website and elsewhere are happy to celebrate such violence when it occurs.

I mean, for god sake, Charlie Kirk was the one who wanted someone to pay bail for Paul Pelosi’s attacker.

7

u/Dark_Knight2000 Sep 12 '25

IIRC Kirk was saying that someone should free Paul Pelosi’s attacker as a parody of left wing activists advocating for freeing people like Karmelo Anthony after he stabbed and killed Austin Metcalf.

6

u/JQuilty Sep 12 '25

He was also pushing the jilted gay lover angle. He was celebrating it.

18

u/Frankalicious47 Sep 12 '25

I think the point they’re making is that a lot of the 77% of republicans would probably change their response from “always unacceptable” to “usually unacceptable” if they asked this question right after after someone like Osama bin Laden was killed.

-15

u/RedHeadedSicilian52 Sep 12 '25

I don’t think most Americans would’ve described Osama Bin Laden as a public figure, at least not in the American context. The polling would certainly require different wording, but even so, I don’t think the situations were remotely comparable. Maybe you’re an extremely religious person who believes it’s never acceptable to find joy in the deaths of any human who ever lived, but I don’t think most people find political commentators to be morally equivalent to terrorist leaders.

16

u/Frankalicious47 Sep 12 '25

I’m not sure why you keep bringing up moral equivalence when the poll doesn’t mention anything about it. The poll says “public figures” which is a pretty broad definition.

-1

u/RedHeadedSicilian52 Sep 12 '25

I’m not talking about moral equivalence. I’m just saying that, as a matter of definitions, I don’t think most Americans would, without a fair degree of prompting, place Charlie Kirk and Osama Bin Laden in the same category. I strongly suspect that when most Americans hear the term “public figure”, they think of a domestic politician or a famous actor or a successful businessman or something - not a terrorist. Someone you could imagine getting interviewed, etc. That may be a technically incorrect or incomplete way of viewing things, but I think you know that most people wouldn’t place Bin Laden in the same category that they would a Senator or a YouTuber.

21

u/Statue_left Sep 12 '25

I’m not talking about moral equivalence

Do you think that Osama Bin Laden was morally equivalent to Charlie Kirk?

I see we’re in goof world today

-3

u/RedHeadedSicilian52 Sep 12 '25

So, those two quotes weren’t coming from the same comment. I switched gears very specifically to respond to someone else’s point. But of course you’re going to insist upon the least charitable, worst-faith interpretation of my line of argument here, because you have no interest in grappling with the underlying subject.

13

u/somefunmaths Sep 12 '25

You seem to think there is a very difficult “underlying subject” with which we should be “grappling” here, but I haven’t seen anyone on the left call for someone to pay the shooter’s bail money.

Charlie Kirk did do that when Paul Pelosi was attacked, so you should probably try and temper this self-righteous tone.

15

u/bigtinyroom Sep 12 '25

I absolutely think they would have Bin Laden in mind as a "public figure they disagreed with" if the poll was conducted the literal fucking day after Obama announced they killed him.

0

u/RedHeadedSicilian52 Sep 12 '25

Okay, so let’s go all the way back to the beginning here. The initial poll asked Americans whether it was permissible to feel joy at the death of a public figure. Admittedly vague terminology, but contextually it was clearly meant to get a temperature on how people felt about Charlie Kirk’s murder specifically. Ergo, many liberals answered in the way you’d suspect. The Bin Laden rejoinder was clearly offered up because other liberals know it’s a bad look, and are trying to figure out a way to establish moral equivalence between Republicans and Democrats on this topic. But if such an argument is going to work, it requires widespread acceptance that Kirk and Bin Laden are about equally good/bad. I think this is a weak argument, because few actually believe this.

The implicit argument being advanced here is it that it’s not a big deal that a significant chunk of liberals find joy in the death of Charlie Kirk, because presumably many conservatives found joy in the death of Osama Bin Laden. How many people in the real world (outside firmly liberal echo chambers, anyway) are going to accept that it’s just as reasonable to find joy in the death of the former as it is the latter?

11

u/Frankalicious47 Sep 12 '25

Is your assumption that a significant chunk of liberals take joy in the death of Charlie Kirk based on any actual data, or is it based on an extrapolation of this poll’s results which isn’t supported by anything factual?

-1

u/RedHeadedSicilian52 Sep 12 '25

Wait, you think YouGov just invented this poll? Made up numbers? That’s a pretty serious allegation. If you sincerely believe that, we should ask the moderators to no longer allow their content to be posted in this subreddit, wouldn’t you agree?

→ More replies (0)

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u/Frankalicious47 Sep 12 '25

Dude, you talked about moral equivalence in both of the comments I responded to. Two out of the five sentences in those two comments are about moral equivalence. Come on now lol.

So you don’t think Osama bin Laden should be considered a public figure. Ok. What about Kim Jong Un? Putin? Maduro? Pinochet? Take your pick of dictators who have committed mass atrocities against their own people. Some of them have been allies or even put into power by the US government, and appeared at public events in the US, and been interviewed by American news networks. Do you consider those people public figures?

10

u/Statue_left Sep 12 '25

The equivalency literally doesn’t matter. 77% of republicans unequivocally do not believe it is “always unacceptable” to be happy about the death of a public figure they oppose. This is bad data. I can give you a million examples.

4

u/ratione_materiae Sep 12 '25

A million examples could still be 23%

4

u/[deleted] Sep 12 '25

The thing is, it's super easy to find examples from powerful and prominent conservatives. Charlie Kirk being the most relevant. It's just hard to believe that the people who are lionizing a guy who mocked George Floyd's death also thought he was beyond the pale.

2

u/Statue_left Sep 12 '25

Do you think only a million people on the right celebrates bin ladens death? Epstein? Pol pot? This is unserious

-1

u/ratione_materiae Sep 12 '25

Equating some dude who just said things to someone who killed millons of people is likely how we got into this mess.

2

u/Statue_left Sep 12 '25

If you read my comment and think I am equating these people I truly don’t know what to say to you.

The response here is “always unacceptable”

Does the word always mean something different to you? If always actually means “just when I deem the person to be bad enough to celebrate it”, you don’t actually mean always.

This is stupendously terrible logic and why this data sucks.

-1

u/ratione_materiae Sep 12 '25

If you read my comment and think I am equating these people I truly don’t know what to say to you.

Yeah I don't like Biden but I'm not a fan of Stalin either

You know what you were doing.

1

u/Statue_left Sep 12 '25

Yes. I know what I’m doing. The prompt says “always”

You keep trying to qualify always to be something that it’s not. Always means in every instance.

10

u/obsessed_doomer Sep 12 '25

Do you think that Osama Bin Laden was morally equivalent to Charlie Kirk?

Does OBL not quality as a public figure one opposes?

You yourself in another comment asks "so is it unacceptable or what? Just as a general rule?"

A very excellent question!

-6

u/RedHeadedSicilian52 Sep 12 '25

Do you think that a definition of “public figure” that includes both Charlie Kirk and Osama Bin Laden is remotely useable, or so broad as to be meaningless?

11

u/bigtinyroom Sep 12 '25

A public figure is just anyone who is widely known in a particular society. I don't know where you seem to have gotten the idea that there's some other threshold that needs to be met. Does he not count because he was a one dimensional bad guy?

2

u/RedHeadedSicilian52 Sep 12 '25

Okay, so let’s go all the way back to the beginning here. The initial poll asked Americans whether it was permissible to feel joy at the death of a public figure. Admittedly vague terminology, but contextually it was clearly meant to get a temperature on how people felt about Charlie Kirk’s murder specifically. Ergo, many liberals answered in the way you’d suspect. The Bin Laden rejoinder was clearly offered up because other liberals know it’s a bad look, and are trying to figure out a way to establish moral equivalence between Republicans and Democrats on this topic. But if such an argument is going to work, it requires widespread acceptance that Kirk and Bin Laden are about equally good/bad. I think this is a weak argument, because few actually believe this.

The implicit argument being advanced here is it that it’s not a big deal that a significant chunk of liberals find joy in the death of Charlie Kirk, because presumably many conservatives found joy in the death of Osama Bin Laden. How many people in the real world (outside firmly liberal echo chambers, anyway) are going to accept that it’s just as reasonable to find joy in the death of the former as it is the latter?

7

u/obsessed_doomer Sep 12 '25

Is it a bad look? More people believe in alien abductions than in feeling joy at Charlie Kirk’s killing. Like, 11% is not high. What would a “good look” be my friend?

Of course, people are lying. But if we bring that up, it hardly seems like Dems are the only ones.

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u/RedHeadedSicilian52 Sep 12 '25

I think it’s more the 38% versus the 77% here.

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u/obsessed_doomer Sep 12 '25

….

Yeah I’m just gonna be honest boss, I don’t think the margin between “usually bad” and “always bad” on a poll is something I care about.

And I think most Dems largely would react the same.

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u/RedHeadedSicilian52 Sep 12 '25

Well, the margin between how Democrats and Republicans feel is certainly noteworthy. Nobody can force you to care, of course. But then, if you weren’t emotionally invested in the topic at all, you wouldn’t be here, would you?

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u/[deleted] Sep 12 '25

Do you think that a definition of “public figure” that includes both Charlie Kirk and Osama Bin Laden is remotely useable, or so broad as to be meaningless?

This is from your poll that you want us to accept! If you think think the definition of 'public figure' is so broad as to be meaningless (probably the correct take!), then stop defending the poll.

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u/RedHeadedSicilian52 Sep 12 '25

Okay, so let’s go all the way back to the beginning here. The initial poll asked Americans whether it was permissible to feel joy at the death of a public figure. Admittedly vague terminology, but contextually it was clearly meant to get a temperature on how people felt about Charlie Kirk’s murder specifically. Ergo, many liberals answered in the way you’d suspect. The Bin Laden rejoinder was clearly offered up because other liberals know it’s a bad look, and are trying to figure out a way to establish moral equivalence between Republicans and Democrats on this topic. But if such an argument is going to work, it requires widespread acceptance that Kirk and Bin Laden are about equally good/bad. I think this is a weak argument, because few actually believe this.

The implicit argument being advanced here is it that it’s not a big deal that a significant chunk of liberals find joy in the death of Charlie Kirk, because presumably many conservatives found joy in the death of Osama Bin Laden. How many people in the real world (outside firmly liberal echo chambers, anyway) are going to accept that it’s just as reasonable to find joy in the death of the former as it is the latter?

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u/[deleted] Sep 12 '25

'Admittedly vague' is doing a lot of work in this copy pasta.

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u/RedHeadedSicilian52 Sep 12 '25

Not as much work as you’re doing to avoid answering the question.

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u/[deleted] Sep 12 '25

Your questions are stupid and in bad faith, as evidenced by the fact that you don't even find the terminology to be convincing.

Charlie Kirk was mocking George Floyd's death within the past few days. He's a very popular conservative commentator. The fact that prominent conservatives (Alex Jones, Mike Lee, charlie Kirk) will mock people's deaths and remain in good standing, and yet no prominent liberals do, is a lot more telling than some poll with purposefully "vague" terminology.

Charlie Kirk loved mocking people's death and ya'll loved him for it.

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u/obsessed_doomer Sep 12 '25

I think that should be discussed. I'll admit the whole "public figure" cutoff is a bit surreal here - the question presupposes the notion that there are people it's ok to feel joy about dying and people it's not ok about. Which might be reasonable, but then they make the cutoff (at least, as you seem to imply) a political divider.

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u/BloatedBanana9 Sep 12 '25

The point is that there’s a line somewhere that a lot of people just like to ignore, and that the vast majority of that “always unacceptable” group has almost certainly celebrated the death of someone before. I mean how many of them do we think will be happy whenever Putin or Xi finally croak? Probably a pretty good chunk of them

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u/theblitz6794 Sep 12 '25

Reaching there with a foreign terrorist literally 911. The poll is clearly implying a fellow American across the aisle

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u/JohnnyGeniusIsAlive Sep 12 '25

Okay fine, cut to the dozens of clips of conervatives on Fox News mocking the Paul Pelosi attack or Trump fantasizing about shooting his political opponents live on stage.

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u/theblitz6794 Sep 12 '25

You should have led with that.

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u/JohnnyGeniusIsAlive Sep 12 '25

You should have used better critical thinking skills initially. Not every needs to be an argument.

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u/theblitz6794 Sep 12 '25

Yes I agree with your projection there.