15 April 2021
Our latest Engagious/Schlesinger focus groups find swing voters "very troubled" over pulling George Washington's name from a public school or Dr. Seuss titles from the shelves — but fine with "canceling" My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell or "Mandalorian" actress Gina Carano.
Why it matters: Conservatives accuse progressives — and vice versa — of trying to cancel anyone who doesn't meet their purity tests. But these voters whose political loyalty is up for grabs see two distinct claims: legitimate versus frivolous.
- "They're able to separate true outrage from manufactured outrage," said Engagious President Rich Thau, who moderated the discussion.
- "They're able to separate attempts to redefine what's culturally acceptable, from people who are in the business of getting attention for themselves and then believing people are critical of them."
- While focus groups are not statistically significant samples like polls, their responses show how some voters in crucial states are thinking and talking about national priorities.
The big picture: The two April 13 sessions included 13 women and men — from a mix of the most competitive swing states — who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 but Joe Biden in 2020.
- Five of the 13 said America is "under assault" by progressive activists who want to "cancel things they deem offensive."
- All 13 said cancel culture goes both ways — with liberals trying to cancel conservatives and conservatives trying to cancel liberals.
Between the lines: None of the 13 felt that they personally had been canceled by anybody — and several were vague about how to define terms like "woke" or "cancel culture."
- "This is a conversation that's alien to their daily lives," Thau said. "This is a media conversation. This is something that happens to others."
- But when posed with seven different cancel-culture scenarios and asked whether they were "very troubled" about the treatment of the supposed victims, these voters had quite different takeaways about whether each was a legitimate concern or not.
By the numbers: Zero of 13 felt "very troubled" by Carano's being fired by Disney after comparing being a Republican in 2020 to being Jewish in Nazi Germany. Ten of 13 were "very troubled" by a since-suspended plan in San Francisco to rename schools named for Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln.
Other scenarios fell somewhere in between.
- Only one sympathized deeply with Lindell, who lost major retailers after questioning the legitimacy of the election results and making a movie about election fraud. Two sided with Fox hosts Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham.
- Three worried about liberals' boycott of Goya Foods after its CEO had praised then-President Trump at an event. Five said the same about boycotting "Harry Potter" J.K. Rowling for voicing fears that transgender rights could impinge on women's rights.
- Eight of 13 strongly opposed the decision to end publication of six old books by children's author Dr. Seuss because of concerns about offensive imagery.
What we're watching: Eleven of the 13 voters disagreed with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's recent declaration that corporations should "stay out of politics" — an idea he quickly walked back.
- Some participants actually laughed out loud, while others said corporations should have the same rights to expression as individuals.
- "You can't tell a corporation to stay out of politics and then say, 'But I still will accept your money,'" said Daniel V. from Nevada.
- "Everyone has a right to voice their opinions," said Jamie G. from North Carolina. "It's wrong of him to try and silence that from any American."
- The group was split on Major League Baseball moving its All-Star Game out of Atlanta in protest of Georgia's new voting restrictions.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.