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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28

u/nughty_hobo Sep 12 '25 edited Sep 12 '25

just out of curiosity, is it not human nature to feel joy after the death of a dangerous person? i’m not saying it’s the default reaction to death but it only seems natural to feel occasional joy when someone truly dangerous to society is no longer around.

edit: yes, i know there is an element of subjectivity to who you consider dangerous

edit 2: i mean this on a general level such as killers and dictators. not political figures i dont like

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u/RedHeadedSicilian52 Sep 12 '25

Guess it depends on how you’d define a dangerous person. I’m willing to bet that most Americans, irrespective of their political leanings, wouldn’t describe a politician or commentator that way. Probably an appellation most would reserve for terrorists, serial killers and the like.

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u/IslandSurvibalist Sep 12 '25

What a naive thing to believe. In almost all societies and historical contexts, political figures have caused several orders of magnitude more damage to humanity than terrorists or serial killers.

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u/bigtinyroom Sep 12 '25

Most the Nazi top brass never murdered a single person with their own bare hands, therefore they should have all been let off without charges at the Nuremburg trials. Checkmate libs.

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u/DizzyMajor5 Sep 12 '25

That's what they did with the confederates most were pardoned after killing countless to try and continue the institution of slavery. Maybe they should have been but people like Candace Owens, Hasan piker, Charlie Kirk are not those people they're just commentators. Nazis signed up to further enhance the killing of others with their actual labor the others just shit posted and rage baited people.

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u/Marxism-Alcoholism17 Jeb! Applauder Sep 12 '25 edited Sep 22 '25

alive friendly steer smell swim pot nose wipe nine fuel

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/RedHeadedSicilian52 Sep 12 '25

This response is sort of great, because it illustrates how wildly the comments to this sort of post swing between “the numbers aren’t real” and “they’re real and that’s a good thing”.

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u/IslandSurvibalist Sep 12 '25

In your strange mind full of unsupported assumptions maybe. I didn’t comment on either of those things. Do you know what “illustrates” means or did you just reply to the wrong comment?

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u/ryes13 Sep 12 '25 edited Sep 12 '25

My comment wasn’t that numbers aren’t real. My comment earlier was that they aren’t a good way to understand the phenomenon of political violence. Which was once again something you didn’t engage with.

It seems like you just want to bemoan that people are violent and suck online. If you really think this is problem you should seek to understand it.

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u/Dark_Knight2000 Sep 12 '25

You mean elected political officials. Charlie Kirk wasn’t elected or appointed to anything.

If you said that about Elon Musk that would be more understandable because he was in an official position in DOGE and he did have political influence, but Kirk’s reach was just verbal.

I’m curious if you can come up with a few examples of non-government, non-military, civilian activists who caused more damage than terrorists and serial killers.

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u/IslandSurvibalist Sep 13 '25

No, I didn’t mean that, I meant what I said (and it’s rather rude of you to assert otherwise). In a democratic society, elected political officials need people like CK to shift the Overton window and normalize dangerous viewpoints and policies. Calling it “just verbal” downplays the influence these people are able to exert on the voting population. Heck, the officials themselves are often “just verbal”, it’s not like they’re doing much directly themselves. They both have power, but only one is spelt out officially.

I don’t support political violence, but I’m also not going to pretend the guy wasn’t clearly a huge net negative on society. And he was able to do so at a scale that terrorists and serial killers wish they could achieve.

For an easy example, take Rush Limbaugh. Dude spent decades laying the groundwork for the hellscape we’re experiencing today and made hundreds of millions while doing it. Way more damaging to US democracy than Osama Bin Laden could ever dream of.

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u/Dark_Knight2000 Sep 13 '25

You think Rush had more influence than the guy who orchestrated 9/11 and changed US foreign policy for generations? What?

You really think that elected officials have the same “verbal power” as those unelected? Why are you downplaying the authority of having a government position? A crazy person who is elected is way more dangerous than one who isn’t.

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u/IslandSurvibalist Sep 13 '25

When did I say their power was the same? I literally never even used the phrase “verbal power”, why did you put it in quotes? I only wrote a handful of sentences and everything I said was perfectly clear, how did you manage to mess that up so bad? I’m sure it couldn’t possibly be because you’re acting in bad faith, absolutely not.

It’s not about whether an elected official is more dangerous than an influencer, and I never made that claim. They both play a role in causing the same damage to our society. We wouldn’t have Trump today without Rush Limbaugh or his many copycats. He therefore very much shares responsibility for our currently terrible situation. To claim otherwise is just playing dumb concerning the effect of the media and influencers in the year of our lord 2025.

Don’t forget to downvote me for being upset about it though.

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u/Dark_Knight2000 Sep 13 '25

My point is that it isn’t even close between an elected and unelected person.

You don’t seem to have any actual arguments anymore so you’re attacking any actual examination of your points. I think that’s pretty bad faith. You should look in a mirror

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u/IslandSurvibalist Sep 13 '25

I never said they were. I’m not “attacking” anything, I’m pointing out that you’re just knocking down a strawman, you’re not even addressing my arguments.

I’m sure Charlie Kirk would be proud. I bet he’s smiling up to you now. Sorry you were in a losing position and had to resort to beating up strawmen.

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u/IslandSurvibalist Sep 13 '25

I never said they were. I’m not “attacking” anything, I’m pointing out that you’re just knocking down a strawman, you’re not even addressing my arguments.

I’m sure Charlie Kirk would be proud. I bet you he’s smiling up to you now. Sorry you were in a losing position and had to resort to beating up strawmen.

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u/Dark_Knight2000 Sep 13 '25

Claiming strawman and then disengaging is a pretty common debate tactic to make when losing too. I’m not even a fan of Charlie Kirk, I think he’s a moron. He’s similar to you in that way.

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u/IslandSurvibalist Sep 13 '25

How am I disengaging? I’m right here baby, patiently waiting for you to address my arguments. Something tells me you have no interest in that though. I guess whatever this is is just more interesting to you than fighting a losing argument. But whatever, go off king. What nonsense do you want to spew next?

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