July 7th, 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

[0:00:07 Speaker 1] in the Democratic Party because there was

[0:00:10 Speaker 0] 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?

[0:00:36 Speaker 0] Hello, and welcome to the second reading podcast for the week of July 6th. I’m Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. Today. We’re gonna talk about some of the findings in a poll that we designed and implemented that was released this week, and I’m joined by my primary and invaluable collaborator in that poll, Josh Blank, whose research director of the Texas Politics Project Have you cut up on your sleep at least somewhat, Josh?

[0:01:04 Speaker 1] Somewhat somewhat, but only a little. There’s always sleep to catch up on.

[0:01:08 Speaker 0] Yeah, I know the feeling. Okay, so I want to talk about the two main areas of the poll this week that is the impact and attitudes related to the Cove in 19 Pandemic in Texas, which have been talking about a lot for all these kinds of reasons in recent weeks and a battery that we did on race. I thought it might be helpful for people to know just a little bit about the backdrop of this poll and people confined. All of the results document thousands of graphics, literally at the Texas Politics Project website, which is Ah, Texas politics dot utexas study to you. And, you know, initially we wanted to follow up on the April poll. That we did is part of our ongoing partnership with the Texas Tribune. That poll was designed, given the timing toe to focus primarily on what was at that point the emerging pandemic. And there was a lot of uncertainty then. But from, you know, I think a considerably different perspective than were in now then we’re experiencing now. At that point, the worst of the pandemic was not in Texas, and state and local government seem to be largely in a preemptive or preventative mode. The case count wasn’t very high here at that point. Those rising as it became more clear that the pandemic, the economic impact of it, the politics around it, we’re going to continue to dominate public life. As we went through May really late April in May, we plotted a follow up to that pole. But then, in that period, in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota in Minneapolis, we thought that it was important to add issues of race and policing to the poll. So what we emerged was, is a huge amount of data on, you know, really, the preeminent topics that are dominating public life in the country and with Texas now one of the epicenters of the pandemic dominating public life in Texas. So there’s a lot to talk about, and we’re gonna try to unpack. Some of the things that are in the poll will never get to it all. Let’s I think we should start with the Covitz stuff, Josh. So you know, you and I were talking before the podcast and and one of the one of the central themes in the initial discussions, and we just release. Whereas we record this on Tuesday, we just released the Kobe data on Monday morning, yesterday is sorting out what seems on the surface like attention, if not a contradiction, between two of the key streams of results that we see in the top lines anyway. And that is, on one hand, clear evidence that in a lot of domains, Texans concern about the pandemic. When we asked them how they concerned, they are about various aspects of it seemed to be declining or becoming at least less intense. And yet, on the other hand, there evaluations of the governmental efforts to contain the virus have gone down Remarkably. I mean, you know, how do you sort of begin to cut it that

[0:04:12 Speaker 1] well, I think you know, it kind of speaks to the way you said this up at the beginning, right? And it’s something that we talk about it in pulling all the time, which is the any sort of survey is always a snapshot in time. And so ultimately, when we, you know, assessed all these attitudes in April this was at a point of a lot of fear and fears, a lot of uncertainty, right? And so I think what we were witnessing at that time was, as you pointed out, both a reflection of the I think what was going on on the ground here, which is that we were looking to states like New York. We were looking at the Pacific Northwest and thinking, My God, it’s going terribly there. Where is in Texas? It hadn’t really begun yet in any sort of large scale way in terms of a paint gun, I mean sort of pandemic. And it really had extensive community spread. We weren’t really, you know, in any sort of threat of the hospitals being overrun or anything like that. So people were were one, I think, sort of looking and saying, You know, on the evaluative side, Hey, we’re doing pretty OK here, relative to what’s out there At the same time, we knew a lot less about the virus. So when people were looking to the virus with, they get saying again in April, I think people were a lot more. There’s a lot more uncertainty about how easy was to catch the virus, whether you were gonna catch it. Fry, you know, touching packaging or buy something in the mail versus whether you had to beat it enclosed space with someone for next

[0:05:26 Speaker 0] year we were still sterilizing our Amazon boxes,

[0:05:29 Speaker 1] right? We were still exactly were still sterilizing our Amazon boxes in April. Right? So you go and you jump ahead to June now and a lot of things have changed, Right? So, on the ground, you see, you know, again, obviously, case counts increasing in Texas dramatically. Hospitalizations are increasing dramatically in between April and now, we ostensibly open the state up for business. And so a lot of the restrictions that had been sort of spearheaded by local governments had been reversed over that time period.

[0:05:59 Speaker 0] I was wondering what verb you were going to use when you said, because

[0:06:02 Speaker 1] I was can remanded undone? I know, relaxed. I was running through. I had, like four others in my head. I was kind of running through. There is nothing. What’s the What’s the appropriate one?

[0:06:14 Speaker 0] That was, I thought that’s a good choice.

[0:06:16 Speaker 1] Reversed its It’s neutral, Um, and so, you know, here we are in June and things have changed. I think on the one hand we know a lot more about the virus, Brian. And so I think you know, there is some reason to believe on its own people’s concerns should be a little bit less. And people’s behavior should be a little bit more. Uh, you know, let’s say appropriate in terms of the concern that they show for their actions and what’s safe and what’s not safe. On the other hand, things were objectively going a lot worse here in terms of, you know, the actual experience of the Corona virus in the state. And so I think you know the thing that sort of interesting to us that we’re trying to sort of unpack again, accepting the fact that there are limitations with two snapshots in time is sort of, you know, to some extent, kind like were those lines cross And by which, I mean, you know, our people expressing a reasonable decline in their concern because, you know, they know more or are people expressing, You know, again over the month of June, which is basically the time in which we expected most of these new cases that we’re now experiencing today we’re actually starting to spread well, that’s when we measured what people were doing and again what people were saying, what they were doing, what they were saying. They were doing was they were living life a lot more normally than they hadn’t been in April. And that’s sort of what is, you know, partially contributed to the surgeon cases. So it’s not really consistent.

[0:07:36 Speaker 0] Yeah, I mean I mean, I think you know a couple of things about that one. You know, we should note for people that the poll was in the field at the time that it was getting harder and not then this is another topic we can talk about it. When it was getting harder to deny that things were actually going very wrong here were in the field from June 19th to the 29th. And if you look back, you know where the curve really started climbing and the numbers started getting bigger and Texas started getting more attention in the national media and in the statewide media. You know, the debate over how the state was handling it, you know, the, you know, whether we should have opened up or not was really kind of getting decided in that period and that and it was during that period that we actually that the actually reversed the slowed and then, to some extent, reverse the shutdown orders around the state. And I think that, you know, to get back to the core, like, how do you reconcile this? Sort of We’re not expressing its much concern, but we’re also disappointed in the way that the government is handling. It is it is that people internalized that in a line that’s very big right now and that, actually the White House I’m reading is is experimenting with putting out There’s there. Next message of 24 hours is this is a long term problem. We’re going to be in it for the long haul. And, you know, we asked the question on a quest. One of the questions we asked him both April and at the end of June was, You know, how much longer do you think it will be before things get back to normal? And the kind of center of people’s expectations shifted much more in the longer term direction in that interval? And I think in some ways that’s the connective tissue between this idea that, you know, look at some level putting myself in the head of some respondent. I’m not as concerned as I was, but I am like, not the exhibitions about this being over and how it’s gonna affect my life have changed, particularly in terms of time.

[0:09:36 Speaker 1] Yeah, And I think you know, the other thing that you have to account for here is the fact that people have change their behaviors in fundamental ways. So when they’re evaluating again, sort of, you know whats normal, you can imagine putting normal in quotes. Now that definition has moved. And so I mean, I think that’s the other piece of this, too, which is that you know, you’re seeing people a lot less concerned necessarily about contracting it. Some of that is because they know more about the virus. Some of that is because in some cases they don’t believe the virus is actually a threat. And again, that’s a smaller share of people. But that’s important. Maybe come back to that. Some people have said, you know, just gnome or and some people, but a lot of people have adjusted their behavior. So ultimately, you know, you go across a pullin you find, you know, the vast vast majority of Texans are avoiding large groups. The vast majority of Texans air wearing masks, the vast majority of Texans say that they’re washing their hands more frequently and avoiding touching their faces and really just avoiding people you know again that they’re not familiar with. It’s. Ultimately, people are responding differently now that they may have been in April, and the realities have gotten used to it in a lot of wasted. So I mean, what’s normal now is different for people. I mean, the other, I think, sort of big battery that we asked are one of the other big batteries. And this was we asked, People across 16 serve activities is safer. Is it not safe to do this right now? And they range from going grocery shopping, getting a haircut, going to work, staying at a hotel, going with your board restaurant, go to a bar, going to a gym, flying so a lot of different activities. And, you know, I think one of the sort of overarching take aways from that is that you know, of the 16 activities we asked about, only five of them did. A majority of Texans say it’s safe to Dio, and only by a little bit to 72% said it was safe to go grocery shopping. 59% think it’s safe to get a haircut. 55% that gets safe to go toe work. 54% think it’s safe to vote. That was complicated. We’ll set that aside. 50% say it’s safe to say to in a hotel. The other nine items we asked about less than a majority thought it was safe. Now what this tells me and I get is that How do you strike this with this sort of decreasing concern? Well, I think part of the decrease in concern is a reflection of the fact that people are not, You know, they may be going out more than they were in April, but they’re not doing the same complement of

[0:11:45 Speaker 0] that they have in terms. They’ve internalized the new behaviors and the risks, and it’s working on their concern. They may not like the fact that they have to do that and was, you know, and and perhaps I wish that it wasn’t that way, and you know, when you asked, you know Hey, how do you feel about people’s efforts to make things better? They’re kind of going well, I’ve adjusted, but I don’t feel like they’re doing a good job of it of making things better. Now they may expect them to do that or not. But, you know, I mean, I think that see, we see some of the decrease in those supportive already ratings coming from that

[0:12:19 Speaker 1] not to get too into the politics of it, although we do. That’s kind of what we dio. I mean,

[0:12:22 Speaker 0] well, I think I think let’s get into the politics. I mean, we do need to cover that. I mean, because one it one of the other things that help square this is that when you go down below the top line levels, there are cross currents. You know, we’ll just say it based primarily on or, you know, most evident in data divided by partisanship.

[0:12:42 Speaker 1] Yeah, that’s right. So I mean, across the board, you know, when we talk about declines and concerned I mean, Democrats saw a decline in their level of concerns around the Corona virus, but nothing like Republicans and same thing, you know, with behaviors, I’d say so. Just sort of at the top line, just to kind of, you know, you kind of mentioned something just before here and I want to hit on one result. You know, we asked people whether it was more important to control the spread of the virus, even if it hurts the economy, or whether it was more important to help the economy even if it hurts attempts to contain the spread of the virus. A majority of Texans thought it was more important to control the spread of the virus than to help the economy 53% to 38%. But where L where 88% of Democrats said there was important to control the spread of the virus majority Republican 65%. So it was more important to help the economy. So one, I mean, that’s part of the pressure behind. I think a lot of attempts by the political leadership to move this state in the direction of opening, but you combine that with these lower levels of concerns, and particularly among Republicans, you know. Asked if the Cove it pandemic was a significant crisis ah, in April, 66% of Texans said so, 57% said so in June, Democrats remained essentially unchanged for Republicans to drop from 48% saying it was a significant crisis to 29%. You know, the share of Republicans who said that they were not very or not at all concerned about community spread increased from 27% to 44%. So almost half said that they were basically not concerned about the spread of the current virus in the community. Almost half said they were not concerned about contracting the Corona virus choose again and almost doubling of the percent who said they were not concerned. You know it At the same time we get to the politics of this. About one in five Texans basically report not wearing a mask today when they leave their home. That goes up to about 1/3 of Republicans. So there is a political dynamic here. You don’t see it in other areas. You don’t see it sort of manifesting and race very clearly. You don’t see it manifesting in location as clearly so urban, suburban, rural. But in partisanship, you see this huge split in the way that ah, people are responding to this virus

[0:14:42 Speaker 0] about the one place you do see it on it, have a ethnic and racial component where you cease differences is an impact rights, but yeah, but in terms of concern and behaviours, it does seem that when you look for explanatory drivers, just that the surface level and we’re not, you know, extensive analysis on this Partisanship is the most obvious thing and the most durable across a wide range of results.

[0:15:08 Speaker 1] Yeah, going back to that, you know what’s safe and unsafe to do so. There were 16 items. A majority of Texans said it was safe to do five of those items for Democrats. A majority on Lee believed it was safe to go grocery shopping. None of the other 15 items in a majority of Democrats feel like it was safe to do for Republicans. They felt like it was safe to do nine of the 16 items. A majority said it was safe to do 1969 times. We asked about Ah, and so you know, you’re just seeing very different responses here, which makes you the politics evident also, just even the practicality of combating the pandemic very challenging,

[0:15:43 Speaker 0] right? And so I think you know, they’re you know, as we look at the then the two explanations for however, reconcile ing these cross currents. Part of it is, you know, I think the cognitive piece you’re talking about, the kind of behavioral thean packed of behavior and overtime, just adjusting your level of concern. But there are also other accused affecting that and that some of those cues or partisan and and they are coming from from the national leadership, they’re coming from the president, I would argue most powerfully and allied messengers, you know, that are that are reinforcing that dynamic among the people that I think are less concerned and are engaging in ah, higher level of behavior outside of probably the ideal norms of containment To put it.

[0:16:28 Speaker 1] Yeah, And I would add to this, you know, I think I think you know, I don’t have too much time to jump into this. We want it on some other things. But you know, the idea that this is solely a partisan story, even though it’s most evident, is part of and partisan results troubles me a little bit because I actually think it’s a little bit wrong and also unhelpful. You know, across all these numbers that we’re talking about here, the reality is that you know, the vast majority Republican from most cases are still engaging in most of the sort of social distancing guidelines that are being proposed. It’s actually a stubborn minority that aren’t the other piece of it is that I don’t think that, you know, you sort of, let’s say today I’m a Democrat and I wake up tomorrow and I’m a Republican. It’s not because I’m a Republican that all of a sudden I stopped wearing mask right. That’s like for it’s not like putting on a pin that says, Oh, I’m going to the GOP convention today. I guess I should show everyone how you the reality is. It’s a combination of a lot of different things that has to do with sort of, you know, get ideological predispositions towards sort of government mandates. But it also has to do with assessments of risk. And I think what ends up happening in terms of how likely you are to contract the disease, and that’s a relationship to you know, your own health situation where you live what,

[0:17:33 Speaker 0] so you’re on social position,

[0:17:34 Speaker 1] your own social position, things I

[0:17:36 Speaker 0] mean, I began the link that your health position really is linked to your social position in a lot of ways.

[0:17:41 Speaker 1] And to the extent that you know, you’re also than taking your own position and lining it up with your sort of your assessment of the dangers of the Corona virus both in and of itself and also the danger of contracting it. That’s where the information environment comes in. And the way that Republicans and Democrats seek out different information sources alters. I think the risk assessment that people make, which we then see in these sort of assessments it becomes most manifested partisanship. But I personally don’t believe that it’s it’s not again. It’s not a Republican thing to say I’m not gonna wear a mask. It’s the fact that I happen to be Republican finally getting a lot of information about the fact that this virus is overblown or even in some cases maybe doesn’t exist at all. And then I line that up with my own views of my own lifestyle and my own risks. And then I make a decision.

[0:18:28 Speaker 0] Yeah, there’s there’s nothing. There’s nothing, you know, essential in Republican identity that makes you less cautious working.

[0:18:36 Speaker 1] You decide you’re not gonna wash your hands more

[0:18:38 Speaker 0] But there are things that accumulate within your social identity as a Republican that can be decomposed into the things you’re talking about. You know where you get your information, who you socialize with, what your social position is. All those things kind of a crew into that before we move on to race. I do want to hit a little bit about the thinking about the future, because it does fall out of this.

[0:19:00 Speaker 1] What I was going to say, it doesn’t consequential. I mean, right? So I mean, is that how, having now it said, Hey,

[0:19:05 Speaker 0] how you want? It’s how you understand it rather than the fact the differences are pretty incontrovertible in the data. They’ve been consistent across not only our data but the data nationally, so we’re not saying it’s irrelevant. It’s just But I think it is what you know, how you understand the mechanisms by which you arrive at these attitudes are and how you understand them and what you make of them. So let’s look at content the future and look at the attitudes on contact tracing. So, you know, we put together a battery with the four main components on on contact tracing. We told respondents just in case the term was unfamiliar, we gave them a very neutral reading of what contact tracing is a definition. And you can see that in the in the poll documents and got interesting results. And And obviously we asked about this because contact tracing from the very or close to the very beginning has been advertised as a key component of at least controlling the impact of the virus.

[0:20:05 Speaker 1] Yeah, I mean, I think it’s actually in many ways once. Ah, any of the restrictions that were laid down by the cities in particular were lifted. This was bruised. Proposed as the primary means by which Texas was gonna combat the Corona virus was that, you know, there were gonna be hot spots they were gonna pop up, but we were gonna have contact tracing teams that we’re gonna go in. And this is

[0:20:24 Speaker 0] an and the execution of this contact tracing, frankly, state, like in a lot of places, but certainly in Texas, has underperformed. We’re not seeing a lot of contact tracing where we are seeing it. It’s not. It’s not being executed very well. Generally speaking,

[0:20:38 Speaker 1] well, it it requires a lot of cooperation. And and the thing is, normally when you look at policy items, if you find you know, 76% or 71% of people in favor of something or supportive sent for something you say, well, that’s a slam dunk. Not so in the domain of public health. Were ultimately you need extremely high rates of cooperation, of testing of vaccinations. Ultimately, you can’t have a slight majority support of something. So he basically as would you be willing to agree to a mandatory 14 days self quarantine if you test positive, 76% of Texas said they would 71% that they provide a list of all the people they’ve recently come to contact with. 66% said they had agreed a weekly testing, but, however, would, However, Onley, 46% said that they would provide access to their cell phone location data if they test positive and then going to the partisanship element here. 63% of Republicans compared 91% of Democrats would agree to a mandatory 14 day quarantine. 57% of Republicans, compared to 88% of the occurrence would provide a list of people that come to contact with 54% of Republicans covered 83% Democrats would agree to weekly testing when it was refined that cell phone data not terribly popular with anybody 35% of Republicans and 60% of Democrats said that they would provide this data. So if you think that technology will save us from the Corona virus, it does not look good. At least in Texas.

[0:21:58 Speaker 0] Well, you know, technology might be able to save you, but not the way people use it. Think about it. Yeah. I mean, you know, it’s hard not to its its gallows humor, you know, no doubt. But, you know to say, you know, it’s fine. You can take some of my blood once a week, but you’re not getting in my damn cell phone. Sorry, not gonna happen. So you know, there’s that. And then there was also we also asked people whether if a vaccine to the Corona virus was discovered and made available and we even put in there at low cost, So is there not to be economic noise in the response? Would you be interested in getting the vaccine and only in the fifties. As I recall,

[0:22:39 Speaker 1] the 9%

[0:22:40 Speaker 0] 59% of Texan said yes,

[0:22:42 Speaker 1] I think it is about, you know, a slightly larger minority said they wouldn’t, and the remainder said they weren’t sure. I think about 20% said they didn’t. They weren’t sure. The main point here is that you know, we’ve been sitting here. If you’ve been sitting at home thinking boy, when is a virus or one is a vaccine? Get emerge so he can kind of go back to a more normal case, will. Ultimately, if you look around at your fellow Texans, almost half of them are not sure if they would even get it

[0:23:05 Speaker 0] right. And there’s, you know, so this goes, Is this term I’m even. I’m hesitant to raise right now because I’m so laden, like so many other things. But the idea here, you know, when you start vaccinating people, is to achieve a level of herd immunity. You don’t have to get 100% but you need to get pretty close. And it varies a lot by areas by five, right, the disease. And I you know, I’m not anybody epidemiologist, but a lot of the research that we’re seeing right now. This is a very highly contagious disease, and I pretty sure that the level the higher the level of contagiousness, all things being equal probably the higher level of herd immunity, and that makes this an issue. So, you know, in some, I mean, those two results in some ways are kind of the most harrowing of everything we saw in the sense that because they take, you know, they addressed the two things that a lot of people are. I think that, um or expert level, the contact tracing is what people are putting a lot of stock in and saying If we can get contact tracing in place, that’s really the way we get a handle on this Even if we can’t get a vaccine and then there’s, you know, I think the more common sense things, you know? I mean, I’ve talked to people and you see people on social media in the media going Hey, I’m just gonna hunker down until they get a vaccine. Well,

[0:24:20 Speaker 1] yeah, and I think you know, not so much. And to bring it back to the policies for one more second before we move on to ah, less complicated topic. I mean, I think this is the difficulty that you know Republicans in general and Republican leaders and Texas are facing on a particular the governor here. The governor is basically taking the position as the state’s czar in many ways on this pandemic response. And ultimately there’s been a lot of distrust of the government generally, but also of even basic facts surrounding the Corona virus. And now that we’re at a point where we really need people to be as cooperative as they possibly can within reason, you actually have a large share of Texans who have been informed over the last couple months that they shouldn’t be concerned that, you know, most effort, sort of to combat the virus or government overreach. And this is going to make combating the virus that much more difficult. And it’s not clear you know what the path forward is or whether, you know, as the numbers get worse if attitudes changed drastically, they might. But you know, currently, you know, it seems as though these attitudes from April to Drew and I would say, you know, these attitudes reflect as much in some ways the change in the actual environment, on the ground, in terms of you know, what we know about the virus and how it’s going on the one hand. But I think they also reflect the political dynamic that we’ve been watching unfold over the last couple months. That really centers on how seriously to take this virus. In a way that’s kind of leading us into this sort of dangerous space. That’s very difficult toe. Imagine a path out of least in the short term.

[0:25:55 Speaker 0] Yeah, I mean, I did a basic level. If you’re to the extent that people aren’t some share of people are not seeing this as a dire threat. It changes the weight when there man it when they’re thinking about trade offs. And so you know, if you’re trading off the privacy in your phone and having people find out where you go in what you’re doing versus fighting a disease, you don’t think is that seriously weigh the tradeoffs differently. Same with the vaccine. So you know. So let’s talk a little bit about race and we’ll talk about race. Will be get, will begin and talk about some of that we’ll talk about that next week. We’ll start with this, um, and drill down into this further. So obviously we wanted to do. We wanted probe attitudes about race in the in the wake of George Floods avoids killing in the protests in the can’t say unprecedented. But ah, you know, Ah, Frank and and brought and broad discussion of race that’s probably, you know, reached ah, breath and depth that we haven’t seen certainly since the you know, the civil rights period and in the immediate aftermath of that. So, you know, for a lot of people, it’s certainly the most serious and sustained discussion about race and racial discrimination, and particularly the role of African Americans and their position in American society. Then we then then a lot of people that air probably under 40 have ever seen in their lifetime. So as as a basic set up for this, we kind of went a little bit more. You know, No one. He’s just the wrong way. Kind of a little bit more social science, see, by going and really bringing back out or discrimination battery, which doesn’t get directly to the issues at hand, you know, even though we did ask questions about the protests and about the police. But we also this battery that we’ve used three or four times now in the past and is adopted people have you similar things where we give people a list of 10 social groups. You know, it’s a mixture of racial and gender groups, racial, ethnic and gender groups and asked them to assess how much discrimination that they experience. And then, after they’ve assessed each group individually, we then ask them which group they think experience is the most discrimination in the US. That’s always been a fascinating, complicated exercise. And we got interesting results this time, particularly compared to what we’ve seen in the past, right?

[0:28:16 Speaker 1] Yeah, that’s right. So, you know, we asked people, as you said, whether you know, each group faces a lot, some not very much or basically no discrimination in the US today. So looking at basically what share of people said that each group faces a lot, I mean, one of the things is notable in the last time we asked this. This set of questions was in 2018 and at that time the plurality of Texans said that transgender people and Muslims faced a lot of discouraged 44% so they face a lot of discrimination. Only 35% said African Americans asked again. In 2020 it goes up to 44%. And this was true. You know, you go again. The idea here is to have them consider the amount of discrimination he’s group face now. We said, Well, which group faces the most discrimination? It’s not a contest you want to win, but this is This is the way that we sort of we sort of think about this to get a sense of, you know, sort of which groups you know in some ways have the broadest perception of rightful agreement or something. So in this poll, what we found was the overall 36% of Texans that African Americans face the most discrimination. And that was by far the most of any of the groups we tested among Democrats, 60% that that African Americans face the most discrimination and this was up from 35% in 2018 Republicans air a bit of a different story on this batter in the and they always have been they’ve moved in the same direction as everybody else. Broadly speaking, there’s a There’s a greater, you know, sort of acknowledgement that African Americans are facing more discrimination. But whether we look at, you know, ranking each groups about of discrimination individually or looking at, you know, sort of perceptions of which group faces the most discrimination for Republicans as a group, the group that faces the most discrimination in the US today is actually Christians. Following

[0:29:56 Speaker 0] the April 28% of Republicans say the Christians are the group that’s most discriminated against. Just

[0:30:02 Speaker 1] one issue, 17% said that whites of the group that’s most discriminated against in 16% said African Americans or the group that’s most discriminated against those air to statistically indistinguishable. But when we go to that other set of questions, we ask about each group. Ah, and there HS Individually, 34% of the Christians face a lot of discrimination. 24% of Republicans said that whitespace law discrimination, 14% of Republicans said that African Americans face a lot of discrimination, setting aside sort of, you know, the you know, whether there is some real amount of face discrimination. We have some items that actually touch on that. I mean, I think this ultimately gets it again. Sort of. You know, the diverging political responses towards this in the sort of the reality of Democrats moving forward very quickly on different proposals to sort of ameliorate racial injustice. Whereas Republicans have been a little bit more, a little bit slower to move forward on this. I mean, I want to highlight one of the right outside that discrimination battery we can kind of

[0:30:55 Speaker 0] before you move on. We should just we have to stop. So if you look at them and when we publish, the podcast will make sure we point to these to some of this data. If you look at this graphically, you know, the way that you describe that data, you see then that Republicans are distributed among, you know, their views of who are the most who experiences the most discrimination are distributed kind of among three or four different categories, as you described with again with Christians at the at the top of that, if you look at the democratic sort of distribution, it’s much more. There’s much more consensus, right, right in the sense that 60% of Democrats say that that African Americans experienced the most discrimination, and so there’s not

[0:31:38 Speaker 1] an 80% say they face a lot. Just

[0:31:40 Speaker 0] surprise. When you look at the policy processes you’re talking about and who’s moving and who’s not. I mean, one wants to be careful about saying, setting aside the content, but it is. Part of what’s going on is that you know, there’s a lot more consensus among Democrats as a group. What’s going on here? And so then when you go to implement responses, there’s just I mean, I think what this point is that there’s two different things going on. One is perception of the magnitude of the problem than informs, You know, the clarity and your willingness to embrace a solution to that. So,

[0:32:12 Speaker 1] yeah, and we had talked about this previously. But I mean, ultimately there is sort of a question in the wake of of George flights killing in the recent protests, and I mean on honestly all of the other recent killings of African Americans in the custody of police. But is this is the response going to be one that focuses on police conduct, or is it going to be one that focuses on broader concerns of systemic racism. And I think we tried to in part of things I’ve been conserved, setting up a pole to ask about these questions. We were trying to hit both things. We wanted to be attuned to sort of the realities of the politics of the moment around police and race. But at the same time, there’s a reason we ask this the sort of broader discrimination battery, because that gives us a sense of real heat. Check about. You know, just what Texans perceptions are of discrimination generally. And that’s really in a state as diverse is Texas. That’s really important.

[0:33:05 Speaker 0] And and so then that, you know, to go on being close out here. What we saw in that question that we asked about whether the killing, the the deaths of African Americans in the custody of police were either isolated incidents or part of a broader problem, and one might weaken unpack in a minute. Why we asked exactly that way are very consistent with what we see in these discrimination batteries, right?

[0:33:31 Speaker 1] Right. So overall, 49% of Texans said that these killings of signs of a broader problem 43% of their isolated incidents. But as you can imagine, there will be big partisan differences. 88% of Democrats said that the deaths of African Americans during encounters with police in recent years or signs of broader problems only 7% that they’re isolated incidents. Among Republicans, 76% said they’re isolated incidents versus 15%. Who said there were signs of a broader problem? So this is sort of the idea of, you know, is this a systemic problem within policing? Let’s just against setting aside any other institutional concerns or is this bad apples? And ultimately I think it is someone who studies public opinion. I mean, this is one of the question I was most interested in seeing the result on in this poll because I think this is ultimately the These are the sort of the I would say, the polar ends of the discussion you see around again, especially the deaths of African Americans of the hands of police, which is Is this just a bad, You know? Well, one bad cop or is this about broader problems? And you can see I think in this result in particular that it’s very easy to imagine how Democrats would come at this problem. Say, Well, look, if this is a sign of broader problems in society, we need bigger solutions, broader solutions for Republicans. If it’s isolated, incidents will then really, we just need to reform police practices so that these isolated incidents or minimized, if not erased. I think that’s kind of where we are in the policy debate.

[0:34:48 Speaker 0] And so you’re gonna find, you know, as we’ve seen in public comments and as we saw in lots of specific instances, I’m thinking of, frankly testimony in the Senate and then Senator Cornyn’s response to a discussion of systemic racism you’re gonna find somewhere in the range of resistance to a lack of understanding of any kind of discussion of systemic racism in the policy domain and and in the public domain. And I think it’s it doesn’t bode well for the for the discussion. As we move forward, though, I think next week we get we’ll do is we’ll start with talking about race and will also, you know, put a pin in talking about places where we have seen some movement, you know, particularly among Republicans but on, you know, among partisans in both sides and kind of assess where that goes. Has that sound?

[0:35:41 Speaker 1] I’m excited.

[0:35:42 Speaker 0] All right, Thanks. So nobody listening, John. Well, let’s say

[0:35:46 Speaker 1] I like something I like exciting. It’s true. I’m sorry.

[0:35:50 Speaker 0] Um, so thanks, Josh, for being here. Thanks to listening. Be safe out there and we will see you next week. Second reading podcast is a production of Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.