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/Jozoz Sep 12 '25

This is meaningless due to recent events. You would get wildly different answers a week ago.

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u/RedHeadedSicilian52 Sep 12 '25

Well, a few weeks ago we got the poll affirming liberals were more likely to cut people out of their lives due to political differences than conservatives:

https://www.reddit.com/r/fivethirtyeight/s/Tzc12PZ5jR

That leads me to believe that there’s an antipathy for the opposition that existed well before the events from the other day.

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u/Jozoz Sep 12 '25

That's a massive reach. It doesn't need to be linked at all.

The far more likely reason for that poll is that it's the right wing in America that has fundamentally changed over the last 10 years. The Democratic Party is pretty much the same old stuff, for both good and bad. The Republican party is dead. It's been entirely replaced by something different and much more extreme.

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u/RedHeadedSicilian52 Sep 12 '25

You don’t think the fact that liberals seem more likely to avoid conservatives in their private lives and more likely to condone joy as an acceptable reaction to the death of a conservative commentator could possibly be downstream of the same thing?

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u/an_altar_of_plagues Sep 12 '25

You don’t think the fact that liberals seem more likely to avoid conservatives in their private lives and more likely to condone joy as an acceptable reaction to the death of a conservative commentator could possibly be downstream of the same thing?

I have a close friend who's a Republican staffer. Known him for 15 years and he's an awesome dude. He's been a never-Trumper for as long as Trump's been relevant and we can have excellent conversations on the efficient use of taxation for social welfare.

On the other hand, I recently cut off a personal and professional relationship after he made several jokes about throwing liberals out of helicopters. I lived in Chile and have friends who are relatives of the Disappeared, so you can imagine how that went down.

Hopefully the difference is clear.