July 14th, 2020 – Second Reading Podcast

[0:00:00 Speaker 0] welcome to the second reading podcast from the University of Texas at Austin. The Republicans were in the Democratic Party because there was only one party chart. Tell people on a regular basis there is still a land of opportunity in America. It’s called Texas. The problem is these departures from the Constitution. They have become the norm.

[0:00:24 Speaker 1] At what point must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized over the male colleagues in the room?

[0:00:32 Speaker 0] Hello and welcome to the second reading podcast for the week of July 13th. I’m Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. I’m joined again today by Josh Blank, research director of the Texas Politics Project. Have you voted Josh?

[0:00:49 Speaker 1] I have early, of course, because I can’t

[0:00:52 Speaker 0] wait early and often, or just early,

[0:00:54 Speaker 1] just early. It’s our They only had so many finger protection devices, so I decided I would say

[0:01:02 Speaker 0] it’s good others. Now there’s a There’s a I just saw this in a column. There’s actually there’s a technical name for those things, and I can’t remember what it iss

[0:01:10 Speaker 1] Well, I have an idea what I think the name is

[0:01:12 Speaker 0] well, I think there’s the name that

[0:01:14 Speaker 1] is another nice

[0:01:14 Speaker 0] calling them. And then there’s than him that they are well, is that all implies this Election day in Texas runoff Election Day. That is so the two main political parties air making, final candidate choices and races in which no candidate cross the 50% mark in the March primary that was held in what feels like roughly a 1,000,000 years ago. Yeah, I

[0:01:37 Speaker 1] think it was a 1,000,000 years. A 1,000,000 years in two weeks?

[0:01:40 Speaker 0] Yes, exactly. So today we’ll talk a little bit about the context of that election will probably hold off on on detailed discussion until after we get the results. But we do want to talk a little bit about the context and maybe peg that and plug a block post that we put together for today about the attitudinal context of that election. But first we want to return to the topics of race police and in protests for those that listen. Last week we talked about the changing attitudes around the Corona virus pandemic that we found in the just released UT Texas Politics Project poll, which we had collected data for in the last week of June, more or less, we talked about how decreasing concern in June had likely contributed to the surge in the Corona vice virus cases that were experiencing. Right now, today we want to go back to talking more about some of the findings from the pole really related to Texas attitudes about race discrimination and policing. And again, just a little bit about the backdrop to this poll, which people confined at the Texas Politics Project website Ah, which is Texas politics dot utexas DDT you and then just hit polling and follow to the latest poll page is probably the most direct way to find all that. There’s also a bunch of summaries if you follow the links there to of the Blawg area. Um, you know, the initial idea in that poll was the follow up on ah on April poll that we had done in our with our partners, the Texas Tribune and which was very focused on Cove in 19 and to look the changes in the cove in 19 attitudes from April to June. Um, we planned another Texas politics project pulled to do that because it was off schedule for the Tribune. But then, of course, thought it was important to add some of our trend items on attitudes by racing discrimination as well as questions about the current topics at hand. So I think we have to talk a little bit about that, and and they are there important, intrinsically, which is why we did it. But also they do form, I think, part of the context of everybody voting today. So we talked last week. I think we talked about this at the end of the podcast. The results of our standard discrimination battery. Now, those painted a pretty complex portrait of racial attitudes in this state, huh?

[0:04:06 Speaker 1] Well, you know, Yes. Let me just let’s start with the ship. That was That was

[0:04:11 Speaker 0] sort of a softball.

[0:04:12 Speaker 1] That was a supple yes,

[0:04:12 Speaker 0] softball, begging for elaboration.

[0:04:14 Speaker 1] Well, doesn’t say next are we? Don’t know, OK, No, I mean, that’s right. But ultimately, you know, it is unsurprising. Here. This is This is complicated, right? I mean, you know, just not to pull back the curtain on polling a little bit here, but ultimately, this is something that we think of is a high dimensionality issue. And what I mean by that is that it’s complicated, you know, if we were to ask people, you know, whether they have a positive or negative attitude towards the color yellow, you know, that’s just a yes or no. It’s very simple. We have to think about when you ask about race and racism. Well, what are we talking about here? Are we talking about systemic racism? Are we talking about race and policing? Are we talking about educational opportunities? Healthcare? Are we talking about African Americans? People of color? I mean, setting aside racism and going to the broader topic of discrimination. Women and men, uh, you know, gender identity, sexual orientation. There’s a lot of space here, which makes it a pretty broad and complicated topic that really doesn’t allow itself for like, Oh, well, that’s just ask this one question, right?

[0:05:16 Speaker 0] I think this Yeah,

[0:05:17 Speaker 1] Yeah, exactly. And so ultimately, what that means is that we have a bunch of complicated data. But, you know, I think it’s paint a better picture. So I mean, I think one of the things we may flag last week, but ah, um, approach that we’ve taken in the past. Just ask people their perceptions of the level of discrimination the different groups face in society. And what we do is we give them a list of about 10 groups that includes, uh, whites, African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, men and women, gays and lesbians, transgender people, Christians and Muslims. Ah, and you know these, you know, the sort of why that’s the 10 we picked. You know, we have to go back and actually think a lot about exactly what the particular reasons were. Although I could think about some of them.

[0:05:59 Speaker 0] Yeah, it was. It was the context of the time in which there was a discussion of both race and but gender in terms of discrimination against women because of the me too movement and the ongoing discussion about LGBT rights in the aftermath of the legalization of gay marriage and an influx of activism in that

[0:06:22 Speaker 1] right then and then the intersection between that decision and the question about whether or not you know, Christians would be forced to participate in gay weddings or or, you know, various activities like that, that then sort of led to this. I don’t know if I call it a backlash. But this I idea that has been, you know, present again before extension of get rights. But this idea

[0:06:42 Speaker 0] of a counter response almost

[0:06:44 Speaker 1] Okay, that’s fine anyway. Anyway, this is all to say. Discrimination is complicated. What we do is when we want to learn about it as we begin by asking people how much discrimination they think each of these groups faces in in the US today individually, and part of the value in this is that we both get, you know, again, get a broader sense of where you know, where people think discrimination lies. This is important. I always think it’s a super important when you’re looking at any polling or any statistics, which is the obvious question is well compared to what So in the most recent poll would say, You know, we found that 44% of Texas voters said that African Americans face a lot of discrimination in the US today, as opposed to some or not very much or none at all. And I think that brings the question with 44% a lot, it’s almost a majority compared to what we can say. We could look to ways we can look at other groups in the that we’ve discussed here and say, Well, they say, you know Texans 44% say African Americans face a lot of information. That compares to 42% who say transgender people face a lot of discrimination, 39% who say Muslims face a lot of discrimination, 27% of, say the same of Hispanics and so on and so forth. The other thing, we could look at it say, Well, how is this change? And that’s really, I think, where the the value in running the same questions Multiple times falls where we learned here that compared to 2018 when we ask this question. The set of questions last time the share say that African Americans face a lot of discrimination increased by about nine points from 35% of 44% in 2016. When we asked before that it was only 30%. So we are seeing in Texas an increasing recognition of the discrimination faced by African Americans. But I mean there’s something else and all that. I mean, we’ve kind of talked about a little bit, which is their sort of another headline does, which is like Boy discrimination is a pretty broad problem. I mean, based on people’s perceptions of it and that there seems to be a lot of discrimination to go around at the very least,

[0:08:37 Speaker 0] a lot of pretty yet or a lot of perceptions of it. So well, you know, I mean,

[0:08:42 Speaker 1] yeah, I mean,

[0:08:43 Speaker 0] and the reality is somewhere in between there, I suppose if we can want to talk about reality now, I think the thing it’s interesting, you know, you raise the time issue there. Is that obviously one of the reasons we were interested in rerunning that battery, which we have. This is what, the third or fourth time we had run that battery. That’s right. And but we hadn’t run it in a little in little years, right? A couple of years. And obviously the killing of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis occur, And the protest that resulted from that we triggered put it this way were triggered by that emerged in the interim. And so that’s a pretty big intervention in this. And and we saw some of this, you know, reflected in the question We asked about the protests. Responses.

[0:09:33 Speaker 1] That’s right, and I should also say, you know, it’s a big intervention, but it’s a big intervention where, you know, people move from different baselines, right? So So I mean, ultimately, you know, before jumping, you know, to the to the protest. I just say, You know, Democrats moved, you know, in a direction to sort of acknowledge more discrimination faced by African Americans after the recent protest, as did Republicans. But the difference is that Republicans were just moving from a much lower baseline than Democrats. So where is, you know? In 2018 35% of Democrats said that African Americans face the most discrimination of any of the groups that we that we tested. Uh, in June of this year, 60% said the same thing. For Republicans, there was also an increase, but it was from 7% who thought that African Americans face the most discrimination to 16%. Who thought that African Americans face the most discrimination just, you know, keeping score at home. The group that faces the most discrimination, of course, into Texas Republicans Christians, 28% we can come back to that or not, but point being

[0:10:35 Speaker 0] the queen just started a bit last week.

[0:10:37 Speaker 1] We touched on that bed last week, reiterated, Well, just raised the point that people begin from different baselines. So then we asked again, Do you have a favorable or unfavorable view of the protests that have occurred in response to George Floyd’s death? And overall, Texans were pretty mixed on that which I think, you know, reflects environment, which there’s a lot of discussions both about, you know, the prote that, let’s say, the the desires of the protests and protesters themselves. But also, you know, some of the unrest that resulted. As you know, I would say both at the hands of protesters and police, probably in different cities across America’s. So in Texas we found 43% of voters with a favorable opinion of the protests, 44% with an unfavorable opinion. Among Democrats, 72% held a favorable opinion. Among Republicans, 73% held an unfavorable opinion.

[0:11:26 Speaker 0] So some familiar partisan structure there, and you know that we don’t have a good basis in line on that particular item. But the baselines you talked about in the discrimination item certainly I think have to inform that to some degree now. We also put attitudes towards the police in that mix. Aziz. Well, so you know, we asked a couple of different questions about the police. We asked about police favorability. And then we asked about people’s attitudes about how they might think of the death of African Americans in police custody, Right?

[0:12:06 Speaker 1] Yeah, I would say, you know, you know, I think maybe how they interpret the attitudes of thes death I mean to be, you know, And I wish I could figure out a better way to say this, and I’ll just say it this way. I apologize before is a bit like to me, this was the killer question in the battery. I mean, you know, this was like, This is the question that to be really tells us a lot about people’s underlying perceptions of what the relationship between police and African Americans are. So he said, you know, do you think that the deaths of African Americans during encounters with police in recent years, our on the one hand a sign of broader problems on the other hand, isolated incidents and this is kind of the justices. This thing a lot of way mirrors the political discussion we see after these incidents where you know a lot of the people, a lot of people who are, let’s say, you know, looking to defend police officers were large, will point out and say, This is a bad apple. This is an isolated incident. This doesn’t represent policing, whereas others say no. This happens far too often for us to say this is isolated because, you know, at least it doesn’t seem to be so. We asked, What do you think? Well, overall, slightly more Texans said it was a sign of broader problems than said it was did These were isolated incidents, 49% to 43%. But again, that same partisan structure emerges, with 88% of Democrats saying these air signs of a broader problem. And 76% of Republicans is saying these are isolated incidents, and I think the reason this matters if you’re sitting you’re listening of this is if you’re looking out there and trying to gauge the political response from of Democrats on the one hand, who are looking, you know, probably broader systemic changes to policing and a lot of other things and Republicans on the others who are saying, Well, look, if we reform police practices, we can solve this problem. This is kind of I think, you know, the fuel that leads to these different responses because their voters have different perceptions about what’s going on.

[0:13:55 Speaker 0] Well, I think in it contributes to, you know, the I think over the longer term. Obviously, this is not the first time that people have asked these questions. It’s being asked in amore direct way. But if you look back at the longer historical scope of this, you know, you go back, for example, to there were political response in what was then called the Kerner Commission, which was named by Lyndon Johnson to examine the aftermath of the, um, uprisings. And the, you know, was then, you know, it’s just really when the term came into use the civil unrest. You know, that kind of emerges from, you know, the early they brought the first riots in American cities in 64 65. And then, you know, the the recurrence of unrest after the killing of Martin Luther King in 1968 discussion is strikingly similar, and it’s, you know, and and the emphasis on policing and racial attitudes is strikingly similar. And that was, you know, 60 you know, 50 years ago. And so I think these these underlying predispositions about how you view these institutions have been there for a long time. And the partisan lines have been pretty close for a long time, allowing for some of the changes in the Democratic Party.

[0:15:21 Speaker 1] Yeah, allowing for changes in, like, you know, the regional distribution of the parties and things like that. Yeah. I mean, I guess what I want to ask you, you know, I mean, because you brought this up a couple times and I’m not as old as you are, So I don’t I wasn’t around. I mean, congratulations. Well, I don’t know if it’s looking that great. Anyway, that’s a good question. Would I trained what I trade the late sixties and early seventies for the next 20 years? I don’t know. Tough call? Um, anyone.

[0:15:50 Speaker 0] It’s an underlying welcome. We’ll put a pin in that. We

[0:15:53 Speaker 1] put a pin in that there’s that’s that’s that’s got That’s a high dimensionality question. Um, but I guess what I mean, what I wonder is, you know, I mean, you said this before, right? That these air, you know, that they feel very similar. And I guess what? I wonder if someone has been watching public opinion for the last. You know, it’s a clip really closely for the last decade or so is it’s notable how much we see sort of a surge in interest in activism. And then and then it receipts. And we see this in the public opinion to where this, you know, these issues become really poured in, you know, Democrats. But one way Republicans split another or you don’t say as a society, there’s more recognition, you know, around some of these issues. And then, you know, I hate you know, there’s no better way to says, but we go back to normal or, you know, to basically the status quo. I mean, is there anything about this that looks different to you? I mean, in

[0:16:41 Speaker 0] terms of your Yeah. I mean, you know, I would say, you know, and we talked about this offline. You know, I think the thing that looks most different to me so far is that there has been a different. There is a broader and different kind of, uh, range of discussion in how we are publicly asked to think about race. I think that, you know, the right now there was a discourse that comes out of, you know, a lot of academic and activist writing. You know, that is real, that is caught under the umbrella of anti racism that you know the idea that this is not just, you know, that the that The response to this is not simply recognizing that there’s a problem, but having an active incorporation of the problem of racism into your attitudes on. And what I mean by that is that, I think. But the biggest benchmark that was most commonly used in earlier discussions has been the idea that you’re either a racist or you’re able to not see color or be look at people in a kind of quote unquote color blind basis. And I think the there’s a much more active part of the conversation that is moving that alternative farther out to saying Look, you know, the idea of a color blind society is to some degree of fantasy and the underlying sort of dynamic here is that you know, if there’s going to be a discussion of this to discuss, the starting point for the opposition to racism has to be not just that it shouldn’t exist, but that there has to be an active recognition of its existence of its structural bounds. And you have to recognize that as the as the fundamental position and opposing racism rather than saying well, wouldn’t it be great if race didn’t exist? Or I can somehow dawn some kind of perceptive and attitude, Newell’s sort of position in which I don’t see race. The bottom line is you can’t not see race, and once you see it, you have to understand it as a hierarchy. Now that’s, Ah, you. No one can argue the usefulness, the validity of that. But I think that that position has become the the the the opposing position, and it’s a much more powerful position. Whether it you know, how much you know. I think based on, you know, keen on what you were saying earlier, it’s very likely that, you know, especially given the current context, it takes a lot of energy to sustain that. Yeah, but you know the kind of Ah, I mean, I think the optimistic view, if you’re concerned about these issues, is that even if it recedes, it recedes, too. You know a different, higher level of discussion that makes some degree of progress on the issue. But I think if I look at something that’s really different, the institutional and political responses, frankly look fairly familiar, even right down to, you know, the corporate responses of, you know, for corporate groups giving money to black lives matter and recognize trying to recognize the situation responded in a very public way. I mean, we begin. We saw that we’ve seen that in recent, in previous varies as well. But the idea is, you know, are you are you going further? And I think to go further, you do need an expansion of the discourse in the way that I’m talking that I think I think we’re seeing, you know, I would look forward, us figuring out a way toe, you know, to try to probe that,

[0:20:33 Speaker 1] you know? I mean, one thing I wanted I think you said this, but

[0:20:35 Speaker 0] I was having a work meeting in public. Just

[0:20:37 Speaker 1] Well, it’s okay. No one No, I Well, let’s do it. I mean, I would say there’s two things I mean, one thing I want toe, I want to say clearly, I think you said That’s what I want to make Sure it’s clear is that race scholars and activists at this point would have gone even further and explicitly. You said, This is what makes it clear that listeners here, you know, they’ve gone further than saying, You know that a colorblind the idea of a color blind society is a fantasy to say it’s actually detrimental, that you’re actually ignoring the different institutional. Uh, you know, facets of society that are making it so that you know, the experience of people is not colorblind, whether or not they themselves try to be colorblind in their viewing of society. So that’s sort of the other side of that. I mean, I think you know the other thing that kind of strikes me in this, that seems to me like it could be different. Also, I think Texas is a great example of This is just the, you know, the increasing, you know, honestly, diversity of the population and in particular of the younger population right. So, I mean, ultimately, there’s a There’s a raw political calculus toe all this, which is to say, you know, you can’t even in Texas is a majority minority state, you know, And it gets increasingly, uh, minority dominated as you look at younger and younger cohorts, right? Ultimately, this is the future of the state. You know, no place like Texas, But it’s the future of a lot of states. And, you know, to the extent that the political system isn’t responsive to these concerns, you know, that’s gonna create being a basic electoral problems. But then the other side of this, you know, this kind interesting. This is more of a work meeting sort of idea. Here is you know, I mean, what I’m curious to see is, you know, Aziz there is movement forward on trying to address systemic racism, which requires seeing color and targeting policies to ameliorate the discrepancies. How do people who don’t fall under this rubric, you know, basically under those policies, namely, you know, white people and wait, what is that reaction? White men in particular, actually, what does that reaction look like now? I’m not saying that, you know, things shouldn’t happen because people are afraid of white men or whatever. I’m just saying that as of right now, we’re in a moment where I think, you know, we’re probably seeing a high water mark in terms of, you know, ah, interest and engagement with the topic. But once we start getting to the brass tacks of what the amelioration looks like, I expect to see a pretty big shift in attitudes among some groups of people.

[0:23:01 Speaker 0] Yeah, And you know who will shift in what direction I think is a big and, you know, there’s ah, you know, I mean, I think you’re right to raise what are the, you know, again, not to be too wonky about this, But, um, you know, what are the material correlates of this expansion of the discourse we’re talking about? I mean, you know, ideas don’t take an evacuee

[0:23:24 Speaker 1] love the love that you preface that with not to be too wonky. Well, talking with material. Coral, It’s

[0:23:29 Speaker 0] Yeah, basically, it’s, you know, it’s like when somebody says to you know, I’m not trying to be ugly. They’re about to get ugly with you, all right? No,

[0:23:36 Speaker 1] no. If no offense, but you

[0:23:38 Speaker 0] know, But you know, to be more snow Director concrete about that. I mean, you know, you know, the discourses expanded in the bounds of the discourse of expanded in the direction of amore throw kind of anti racist political position and discourse because there are different people involved in the discussion. Now, you know as well as you know, the And I think I think we talked about this last week. I mean, you can’t really ignore. I don’t think, um, you know, the, you know, the ease with which you know, images and and and experiences air propagated, you know, be, um or individual. You know, I did, you know, ironically, what we call social media, but is also mawr individualized media. In other words, you know the idea that you know, there’s no there’s no ah, there’s no controlling the image of George Floyd’s death? No. All right, just as you know and it is. And it has led to a discussion of, you know, if we saw this, what are we not seen? Well, see that and that that and other images propagate so you know so broadly and so quickly and are so difficult to control, But it has also brought in the discourse. The discourse is reading an experience, you know,

[0:25:04 Speaker 1] when I would say the attempts to control those images actually leads in the opposite direction, right? So when there is an incident under question and Police Department and any jurisdiction says, well, we’re gonna hold onto the body camera footage now they’re automatically met with a certain degree of skepticism and suspicion that maybe you know that probably, you know, they never faced for most really, honestly for most of the country’s history. And so it’s just a different that any that way, that’s a you know, a good point. That is something that is fundamentally change and change in a way that’s not reverting back because it’s just not possible

[0:25:34 Speaker 0] it again. You know, the dynamic is complex because we’re also you know, it’s not as if you know, for the numbers you were sharing. Everybody has shifted in that direction. And so, you know, for example, one of the things that’s not changed, you know, drastically. Although there’s been some change underneath our attitudes toward the police, which we have to, you know, I mean, we have a Siris of questions about, you know, whether people view the police favorably or not. And I think you know, these are interesting. These air interesting numbers in very subtle ways, you know, in part because there’s no evidence despite what I think, Um, you hear from some corners that the public has turned against the police also,

[0:26:18 Speaker 1] Yeah. No, no. I mean, there’s no evidence of that. And I would say, you know, so in our most recent poll, 55% of Texans had a favorable view of the police. 30% had an unfavorable view. We’ve asked this three times before, in 2019 2017 and 2015. And the favorability numbers were always about the same. Um, you know, what you find is that, you know, Republican attitudes towards the police have remained essentially unchanged, with the vast, vast majority of Republicans with a favorite view 84% in the most reason poll. What has changed, though, is Democratic views again, the Democratic Party’s amore, diverse and younger coalition, who are gonna just tend to have different attitudes about a lot of these issues that we’re talking about in the police fault, maybe fall out of that actually in terms of how they view it. So in 2015 for example, 40% of Democrats had a favorable view of the police. 35% have an unfavorable views. Is certainly ambivalent. It wasn’t as though, you know, Democrats were just, you know, waving police flags around her if there’s such a kind of police flags exist. But in 2020

[0:27:20 Speaker 0] they they didn’t probably early on, but they do now

[0:27:23 Speaker 1] that they do now, right? Okay. Uh, but in 2020 in their last poll, 27% held a favorable view. The police, that’s a 13 point decline from 2015. 53% held an unfavorable view. So almost a 20 point increase. An unfair, real pain. So it’s happening. But it’s not as you say. It’s not as though you know, I think what I mean. Just it’s not as though there’s this overwhelming negative interest. Please say, even among African Americans, 30% hold a favorable view of the police, 44% holding unfavorable view. The remainder choose either to be neutral or don’t have an opinion. So I mean, even amongst you, of the group that sort of beat highlighted as those be targeted by police. It’s a little bit more complicated than just, you know, Oh, there’s rampant anti police sentiment. There’s really not rampant anti police sentiment. There’s a certain amount of ambivalence and it’s getting worse. And I think, you know, I think we’ve read it, and I I’m happy to say this. It’s partially getting worse with Police Department’s inability to address the concerns of the people they serve. I mean, ultimately, you know, I mean, I say this all the time and it’s kind of funny, you know, when you think about it, but police air, you know, the government official you’re most likely to interact with, um and this is true generally. But, you know, it’s certainly true in, you know, these urban communities there actually resource poor. The police might be the one person you’re gonna interact with and, you know, and this is actually part of the broader discussion about, you know, sort of the defund, the police movement, which is to say there’s a bunch of things that police officers are also being nasty. Do that have really little to do with police work, like mental health work, keeping you know, truancy, officers and schools, things that are really not what we, you know, technically think we’re paying police officers to do, but something that actually makes their interactions with citizens um, more frequent and more varied. But I think we also see that in these numbers again, which is, you know, for different people, you know, their experiences with police are gonna be vastly different. And it’s not, you know, some sort of overwhelming negative, uh, you know, basically lets you know anti police party.

[0:29:24 Speaker 0] I think that’s right. And I think that you know that that institution, that attitude toward the institutions is one of the things that we’re gonna have to watch, I think carefully is, you know, a sui contemplate what might be different this time. What might not be different. As I said, you know, the the questions about policing that we’re facing right now are not new. The terrain has been changed by some things that you say the underline shift in demographics, you know, the kind of, ah, you know, shot in the arm that police militarization God after 9 11 But the underlying questions about you know what? The police as an institution should be and how they should operate in and how they interact, in particular with communities of color, have been around for a long time. And it’s now, you know, you know, ask me in in five years about this question of you know, what’s different this time and a big part of my answer. That would be what the outcome of that conversation is and whether you know what, what the the institutional dynamic looks like and whether there’s real change in that area or not. So,

[0:30:41 Speaker 1] yeah, I mean, I think it might go where you want to go right now, but I mean, I think it’s also going to be interesting. See how people interpret the changes that we experience over the next five years. Kind of what I said at the outset, which is to the extent that more active policy is put out there to ameliorate these differences. You know how to different groups react to those policies. But, I mean, I would also add, you know, we had another question here about Confederate statues and what should be done with Confederate statues. We’ve asked this question a few times without going to the specific numbers. You know what we try to do is actually do a range. It’s not about removing or keeping them where they are, but we say, you know, basically a four point scale. Should they be removed from public view? Should they be basically actually Confederate statues on public property? So should those statues be removed from public view? Should they be removed from the basically the public property, but move somewhere like a museum or somewhere else? Should they be left? You know where they are, but with additional historical context provided, which is what some people are good for a while, hearing that less today, Or should they basically just be left where they are as is, And the share of people who said they should be left where they are is this is significantly declined since the last time we ask that the share of people who say they should be removed in one way or another has significantly increased. But what’s interesting? I think you know, in all of this is you’re saying, you know, let’s let’s see where we are in five years is you know is what again, the sum total of these more symbolic versus more policy driven actions are and how I get voters and different groups and different blocks of voters interpret, uh, these actions with respect to both. You know, I think improving, uh, you know, just race relations in the country, but also how they perceive it, affecting them personally. And that’s, you know, I think we can really, really easy right now to underestimate the extent to which, you know, a significant minority of people is going to feel like moves to ameliorate. You know, racial challenges somehow affects them negatively.

[0:32:31 Speaker 0] Yeah. I mean, I think, um, you know the big question about who you know who Who is going to embrace this? Who is going to resist that, You know, among those who are resisting these changes, How are they going to resist that on? Of course, you know how big is that? And you know that will leave itself, you know, we’ll get some. We might even get a few leading indicators on that when we see the election results today, we didn’t really get to talking about the election, but since you know it’s election Day and people are just voting will come back to that next week. So I think with that, I’ll thank Josh for being here. Thank our technical crew in the liberal arts development studio at the University of Texas at Austin, and we will talk to you all next week. Thanks for listening to be safe out there, and if you haven’t voted and can safely do so, please do

[0:33:25 Speaker 1] and wear a mask.

[0:33:30 Speaker 0] Second reading Podcast is a production of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.