ABC News and the Washington Post conducted a poll of Americans to gauge their feelings surrounding the events in Charlottesville, Virginia. Most of the findings are what you expect.
Strength of sentiment is similarly negative for Trump on Charlottesville and, notably, his lower approval rating for handling this issue occurs in his base. Compared with his overall job performance, approval of his response to Charlottesville is 18 points lower among Republicans and 13 points lower among conservatives.
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Additionally, those most familiar with Charlottesville (those who’ve seen, read or heard a great deal about it, 43 percent of all adults) are most critical of Trump. Disapproval of his response spikes to 66 percent in this group, and 53 percent say he’s been equating neo-Nazis and white supremacists with their opponents. That said, it’s members of groups more critical of Trump who’ve been paying the closest attention to the controversy.
Not surprising but also not heartening are the number of Americans who seem to be able to let the Nazi thing ride.
As noted, 9 percent overall call it acceptable to hold neo-Nazi or white supremacist views, while 83 percent call this unacceptable, leaving 8 percent with no opinion. Seventy-two percent feel strongly that it’s unacceptable.
That would equate to about 22 million Americans who feel like neo-Nazism and white supremacist thinking is “acceptable.” The next time some right-wing idiot tries to pretend that the white supremacist wing of their political party is simply a few bad apples, and that it is matched by the same numbers on the progressive side of the political spectrum, you can remind them that this is not true. This is like the science of climate change. There are no two sides to the science of climate change and there are no two sides to the level of backwards barbarous bigotry and racism on the right. You can say there are two sides to the “debate” around those issues, but that doesn’t mean that both sides have equal merit.