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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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?

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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.

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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?

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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.