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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   31240 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 28, 2025

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My first impression of this is that the press release was written before the study, with some blanks filled in. And I noticed some of the odd results others noticed in the crosstabs. Hopefully the name of the author Tatishe Nteta isn't itself worthy of a ban. The linked page has his capsule bio as

My research interests lie at the intersection of the politics of race and ethnicity, public opinion, and political behavior. More specifically, my work examines the impact of changing demographics and shifts in the sociopolitical incorporation of racial minorities on the contours of American race relations, campaigns, policy preferences, and participation.

The word "intersection" seems a bit forced there, honestly; it's like he's trying to write a bio that doesn't actually show his biases while dog-whistling them loud and clear, but dog-whistling doesn't work -- that's a train whistle.

His undergraduate was in African American Studies. His name, though, he comes by non-politically; his father was lefty activist Christopher Nteta a black South African immigrant to the US.

His past work includes papers claiming to demonstrate that "racial resentment" really does measure anti-black prejudice and not just conservative belief, and that Nikki Haley lost because Republicans are sexist.

I would not consider a study authored by him to be reliable. In theory, scientific methods work regardless of who uses them. In practice, there's a lot of ways to put one's thumb on the scale.

My post was about the poll, which was conducted by YouGov. YouGov is a legitimate polling organization; FiveThirtyEigth gave them a B+ rating. It’s unclear who wrote the press release, which quotes Tatishe Nteta and three other professors.

YouGov ran the poll under Nteta's direction:

“Hours after assuming the presidency, Donald Trump signed a string of executive orders aimed at ending the federal government’s DEI programs, policies and mandates,” says Tatishe Nteta, provost professor of political science at UMass Amherst and director of the poll.

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