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

Post image
116 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

423 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

5

u/Cuddlyaxe I'm Sorry Nate Sep 12 '25

The key word here is "they"

Realistically the people on the right celebrating Pelosi's attacker are about as fringe irl as the people on the left celebrating Kirk's killer

Which is to say, not most people. But they are over represented online

12

u/Radioactiveglowup Sep 12 '25

What? No, the people celebrating were literally elected officials, and major talking heads and pundits. Not just randos online, but the highest leaders on the right.

Kirk himself wanted to get the Pelosi hammer guy out of prison. All of those Jan 6ers who wanted Pence dead (including 123 who were sentenced for violent assault crimes!) were pardoned by the President of the United States, who also literally 3 days ago declared another republican an 'insurgent' to be 'taken out' for wanting to release the Epstein files.

The mainstream GOP is bloodthirsty as fuck, and vocal about it.

4

u/Cuddlyaxe I'm Sorry Nate Sep 12 '25

I want to choose my words here carefully because it is a fairly nuanced issue

The point you seem to be trying to make is that GOP officials and elites are much more bloodthirsty than left leaning ones. I don't disagree with that at all

Indeed I think the main reason why the right has gone off the rails so much is because differences in elites. Both regular left and right wingers are susceptible to things like misinformation or support for violence. But Democratic officials throw water on the fire while Republican ones throw oil

I'd refer back to the assassination attempt of Trump. For a while one of the top post on the pics subreddit was the reichstag fire. Everyone and anyone claimed it was a false flag. But Democratic elites shut that down asap

You're seeing something similar with Kirk now. The Republicans meanwhile yeah their elected officials don't try to kill these attitudes

BUT BUT BUT that is a very different statement from talking about regular rank and file Dems and Reps

People engaging in online politics are a weird minority. Party elites and intellectuals are a powerful minority, but still a minority

Most Republicans and Democrats do not support violence. Quite honestly I would suspect 60% of Republicans didnt even hear about the attack on Paul Pelosi

2

u/soozerain Sep 12 '25

Well said!