Polling firm afraid to ask about CEO shooting
YouGov is asking every question but the most interesting one!
This post is an imminently skippable niche complaint that I and maybe five other people in the universe care about, but: what is the deal with YouGov refusing to ask what people think about the CEO shooting? It’s the obvious question, but they keep dancing around it:
YouGov / Economist: 68. How much have you heard in the news this week about the killing of Brian Johnson, the CEO of United Healthcare?
YouGov US: When something bad happens to a public figure you dislike, how often do you feel happy about it?
YouGov US: Do you think it is generally appropriate or inappropriate for someone to feel happy when bad things happen to a public figure they dislike?
I have been on high alert for any polling about this ever since the shooting took place since everyone has obviously been surprised by the sheer public enthusiasm over Thompson’s death, but we’ve gotten nothing. It’s almost as if there’s some kind of professional taboo in place against giving people the opportunity to express their disgust with the ruling class.
Anyway on a completely seperate note, the partisan breakdown of that last question is interesting:
Evidently schadenfreude is significantly more acceptable among Democrats and Republicans. Off the top of my head it’s hard to explain this without looking at the higher profession of Christanity among Republicans. Since the Christian faith puts such a central focus on loving one’s enemies, it’s not surprising that Republican culture would cultivate a special taboo against expressions of schadenfreude.
Note that this doesn’t mean that Republicans experience schadenfreude any less than Democrats do; as Nietzsche taught us, reactionaries often sublimate their feelings of ressentiment into a more socially acceptable passive-aggression. Still, it’s striking just how wide the partisan gap is on schadenfreude, and how difficult it is to explain it.
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