Gentle reminder that Trump supporters aren’t technically people. They’re more like bears who can drive and watch tv.

Are you actually asking? It’s indicative of shifting cultural norms.

I don’t understand why you hate this survey. Attitudes about language are incredibly interesting. The fact that most Americans like the ACA but hate Obamacare is useful information.

People’s attitudes towards a particular word.

If that word loses negative connotation, that’s incredibly telling (for lots of rhetorical and sociopolitical reasons). To be clear, the survey says nothing about the meaning of that word or what it refers to.

This survey is useful for tracking attitudes about concepts over time (and for guiding rhetorical strategy). It doesn’t tell us if people like socialism. It tells us about their perception of that word (use-mention distinction).

Folks perceive the same thing differently depending on how it’s phrased, obamacare vs the ACA, for instance. Ever heard of manufacturing consent? If the word “socialism” is losing negative connotation, that’s quite telling. I’d also like to emphasize that human intelligence is impossible to underestimate.

The results don’t mean anything because they asked the participants to apply their own understanding to the terms. What the fuck does that do?

It literally tells us their own perception of the terms. The information you’re demanding is different, and there’s an obvious and interesting discrepancy between the favorability of certain policies versus the language used to describe them.

The purpose of polls is not to educate people. It’s to figure out what they think in their dumb misinformed animal minds.

These are different questions. We can survey people about specific policies (which happen to be socialistic) and those rates will be much much higher. But that’s not what we are currently asking.