The Death Penalty and the Perils of Progressive Fatalism [New]
Cross posted yesterday at Notes on a Theory.
Today, Up With Chris Hayes featured a good discussion of wrongful convictions and the death penalty. But Chris repeated a misleading claim about public opinion on the death penalty that highlights a larger problem. The claim was that Americans overwhelmingly support the death penalty, and therefore efforts to repeal the death penalty face a serious challenge in terms of changing people’s minds. Chris pointed to a poll showing that a solid majority of Americans said the death penalty was morally justified. More typically, people point to polls that ask simply if people support or oppose the death penalty.
Intuitively, this makes sense. The problem is that it’s a false choice. When polls offer people alternatives to the death penalty, those numbers shift considerably. Gallup has shown this for some time. When offered the choice of the death penalty versus life without parole, public opinion is evenly split. The abolitionist Death Penalty Information Center offers an even more nuanced look.
Note, this poll doesn’t offer people new information, it simply gives them additional choices. What happens when people do hear new information? The numbers shift even more.
What does this mean? It means that many of those people who are allegedly supportive of the death penalty would chose another penalty if given the choice. It means that ‘support’ is soft. Hardly the stuff of fatalism.
I know why someone who supports the death penalty might prefer the first set of questions over the second. But why would an opponent? And Chris is not unusual here. Why do death penalty opponents so often fail to offer the full picture? I don’t know the answer. I suspect a lot of progressives, after years of conservative dominance (which is not the same as majority support for conservative opinions) have adopted an identity of being on defense, of being outnumbered, and just see the world through that lens. But doing so is both distorting and poses a barrier for those who seek progressive change.
* I’m leaving aside three important issues. First, public opinion does not generally drive policy. Second, results of polling is not the same as strongly and sincerely held opinions. Three, we know that polling responses are partly a product of elite discourse. Right now, both parties are pro-death penalty, and as a result, so is the media. If one party were to offer a different view, it would change media coverage and likely move polls as well.
What Do You Think?
5 Responses to 'The Death Penalty and the Perils of Progressive Fatalism'
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
The Big Hurt [New]
Tuesday, 29 May, 2012 at 12:37 pm
is ‘notes on a theory’ your own blog dave? congrats!
Tuesday, 29 May, 2012 at 5:13 pm
It is. Thanks. Launching with a critique of Chris Hayes turned out to be ill timed.
Emocrat [New]
Wednesday, 30 May, 2012 at 9:48 am
Terrific post. Your blog is bookmarked.
Damn good question.
I’m not sure, of course, but in watching “progressives” defend Obama’s lawless “kill lists”, drone wars and indefinite detention, I tend to think that a lot of people who self-ID that way really have neither a clue, nor a care as to what that word even means.
Perhaps that “conservative” lens has distorted the notion of Justice to the point of meaninglessness. To whit, when the State kills an innocent person, that can’t possibly be Justice, even if it’s popular, right? And that is precisely what happens, in addition to the other, more simple discrimination behind choosing who lives and who dies. That makes it a de facto Injustice as well.
Take Obama’s assertion that Due Process, “Means what we say it does and nothing else. Period.” They define any “military age male as a combatant.” Too bad if you’re simply headed to the pharmacist to get some medicine for Mother. If you’re on a road that is “used by terrorists” when a drone happens along, you’re a combatant now.
Even some liberals have taken notice of this, like the NYTimes’ Andrew Rosenthal. And even though his criticism is most polite, this is the first comment on his blog post:
http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/president-obamas-kill-list/?comments#permid=35
I have a couple friends that “think” in largely the same way. It’s almost impossible for anyone consumed with “Go Team Blue!” to consider issues on their own terms. It’s also archetypal behavior of Right-Wing Authoritarian Followers.
As such, I think a lot of “progressives” have crippled themselves to the point of missing the largest points of all. They put Not Making Waves with Leadership ahead of being truthful. And this is all based on the increasingly fantastical notion that “Mitt Romney is, like, totally scary and EVERYTHING!”
I’m having a terribly difficult time distinguishing Democratic Loyalists from Republican Loyalists these days. They seem to operate on the same wavelength, yet neither would ever admit doing so.
With those kinds of blinders firmly attached, it’s hard to imagine prominent “progressives” ever being terribly effective.
Wednesday, 30 May, 2012 at 4:46 pm
Sweet.
I think your point raises three important things. First, people often view politics through a partisan lens. So the same policy done under Obama as under Bush is seen differently by Democrats and Republicans. (There is a lot of evidence on this point). Another mechanism is tribalism – the demand that everyone line up on one side and that one’s own side is all right and your opponent’s all wrong. The third is the view that all politics must be understood (and fought) through the two party election process. In such a case, the only option is to take the lesser evil. (This is deeply wrong if you look at history, recent and long before). And of course, multiple mechanisms can operate in the same person AND they tend to reinforce each other.
There is another thing going on that related – the acceptance of conservative frames for purposes of arguments. Galbraith has been really strong on this, addressing how so many take “markets” for granted and can’t envision any way of thinking about the economy that doesn’t fit with market fundamentalism.
But even with all these things operating, there are plenty of people that can take a more progressive position but misread the political tea leaves. Paul had series of posts on this subject (Page and Jacobs’ Class War?: What Americans Really Think about Economic Inequality is a great resource too.)
Wednesday, 30 May, 2012 at 8:15 pm
By the way, if anyone knows anything about Word Press, I’m trying to figure out how to configure it so that tags, not categories, show up on each post (above the fold) and how to add the “there’s more” tag (right now it’s “…”).