A new poll from @DataProgress finds:
60% of Republicans agree with this statement on migrant kids:
“These are not our children, and they should not have come or been brought here. The government is doing all that it needs to be doing.”
New piece:https://t.co/hhRUhlyE4h
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) July 10, 2019
… The poll first informed respondents of this: “There have been news reports of unsafe and unsanitary conditions for children held in detention at the border. Children have been reported to be without toothbrushes, soap, and blankets, and older children are reportedly caring for babies they don’t know.”
Then the poll asked for respondents’ views. And it found that 68 percent support this statement: “These are unacceptable conditions that need to be fixed immediately so children have a safe environment. Our government should not treat children this way.”
By contrast, only 32 percent supported this statement: “These are not our children, and they should not have come or been brought here. The government is doing all that it needs to be doing.”…
The question is framed starkly. The lead-in paints an arresting — though accurate — picture, and the second view negatively describes the children as not ours, and adopts a deliberately callous expression of how our government should be treating them.
But Alissa Stollwerk, the director of YouGov Blue, tells me that this is precisely the point — to test how voters view the more callous framing, in contrast with the more sympathetic one, in part because the former is the kind of rhetoric you hear on Fox News…
By the way, more neutrally worded polling by CNN found a similar divide: Large majorities of Americans, including of independents, favor allowing Central American refugees to apply for asylum, while large majorities of Republicans oppose it…
“Agents have expressed apprehensions about arresting babies and young children, officials have said.” https://t.co/KcTKsjFLSK
— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) July 11, 2019
The government’s intention, it would seem, is to force more immigrants into substandard conditions, ‘temporary’ hotels at best and prison camps at worst. The agents tasked with this should feel bad about it; the ones that don’t are the ones we all need to worry about.
[Disturbing images below the fold]
Open Thread: The “Wedge Issue” of Torturing ChildrenPost + Comments (63)