public opinion

Last week, the Young Republicans got into a dustup over yet another Facebook flap.  This spring, we discussed how Facebook derailed an NDP candidate to provincial office in British Columbia, when the BC-Liberal opposition got wind of “racy” photos posted.  In this incident, there’s differing opinions which are arguably representations of fragmentation in the Republican Party.  According to the DailyBeast, it started with Audra Shay, vice chairman of the Young Republicans hosting a discussion on Wal*Mart endorsing Barack Obama’s health care plan.  Things unravelled when an “Eric S. Piker” made racially charged comments using the word “coon,” another ThickCulture topic from the spring {See above}.  Audra agreed with the statements, adding a LOL.

Subsequently, there were others criticizing these remarks, Cassie Wallender {a national committeewoman from the Washington Young Republican Federation} and Sean Connor {chairman of the D.C. Young Republicans}.  While these critics were “de-friended” by Audra, “Piker,” for the time being, remained a “friend.”  On Thursday, a black Republican activist, Lenny McAllister condemned these remarks and prior statements by Shay::

McAllister references a culture war going on in the Republican Party and regarding the racially charged remarks going around, he stated “You can cover cyanide with chocolate, but you still can’t call it candy.”

Her own recounting of the events, possible unaware of the screencap, paint a different picture of the events.  In her statement on 3 July, Shay went on to denounce the remarks and attributed the dustup to her political enemies capitalizing on an opportunity.  Irreparable damage may have already been done, as her upcoming bid to be Young Republican chairman may have been derailed.  

I’m not going to engage in any admonishing finger-waving on the dangers of social media, a bete-noire of mine.  I think this is beyond a matter of “political correctness” or freedom of speech issues and do reflect a growing divide between moderates and a more divisive fringe.  Indicative of this is how moderates are often criticized as being RINOs, Republicans-in-name-only, who are not sufficiently conservative. The RINO label was thrown at Wallender by Shay supporters after her criticism of the racial remarks.  In order for Republicans to move forward, they will have to deal with these issues head-on.  Will they use social media to do this?

Twitterversion:: #YoungRepublican schism over racially-charged #Facebook flap. Indicative of a larger #CultureWar within the party?  @Prof_K

Song:: Space Oddity (1990 Digital Remaster) – David Bowie

  

Outside the Beltway links to a new Rasmussen poll that finds the majority of Americans want to throw down over North Korea’s missile launch over the weekend.

Fifty-seven percent (57%) of U.S. voters nationwide favor a military response to eliminate North Korea’s missile launching capability. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that just 15% of voters oppose a military response while 28% are not sure.

On its face, this is shudder inducing. The implications of an attack on North Korea has serious spillover implications for South Korea, Japan and puts us in an uncomfortable position vis-a-vis China. I though the public would have taken from the Iraq war that military action is fraught with complexity. It seems that the “Axis of Evil” framing is still deeply entrenched in the collective American psyche.

Of course this also highlights the limits of survey research. Here was Rasmussen’s question:

“If North Korea launches a long-range missile, should the United States take military action to eliminate North Korea’s ability to launch missiles?”

I’d submit that this question is priming a military response. It’s pretty logical to finish the sentence “North Korea launches a long-range missile” with “at us” rather than “that fell harmlessly into the ocean” or “into space” or wherever. It’s easy to draw a conclusion that the public is reactionary and incapable of informing foreign policy. However, without proper contextualization, who wouldn’t want the U.S. to intervene to prevent North Korea from launching a strike on the United States?

I’d like to see a poll that asks the question differently.