Harvard/Harris Poll: Huge Majorities of 18-to-24-Year-Olds Believe Jews, Whites "Are Oppressors"

The survey was of 2,034 registered voters

From the poll, conducted Wednesday and Thursday of last week:

There is an ideology that white people are oppressors and nonwhite people and people of certain groups have been oppressed and as a result should be favored today at universities and for employment. Do you support or oppose this ideology?

A question asked two questions after that (the intervening question being, "Do you think this ideology is helpful or hurtful to our society?"):

Do you think that Jews as a class are oppressors and should be treated as oppressors or is that a false ideology?

Lots more in the survey, available here. From the description:

This survey was conducted online within the United States from December 13-14 among 2,034 registered voters by The Harris Poll and HarrisX. Results were weighted for age within gender, region, race/ethnicity, marital status, household size, income, employment, education, political party, and political ideology where necessary to align them with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents' propensity to be online.

The poll was supervised by pollsters:
Mark Penn (Chairman, The Harris Poll)
Dritan Nesho (CEO, HarrisX)
Stephen Ansolabehere (Professor and CAPS Director Emeritus, Harvard University)

It seems likely that, of the 2,034 registered voters, only about 170 or so were age 18-to-24 (12% of the adult population, discounted for lower voter registration numbers), which would yield a margin of error of ±8%; even with that margin of error, the view that whites and Jews are oppressors would get huge majorities among 18-to-24-year-olds.

Comments

[Jerry B.]

The youth will be the bigots and oppressors.

[Defenderz]

Jews have largely been responsible for the immigration of third worlders, who are now the majority of 18-24 year olds. They brought this on themselves.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Many of the Jews have been stupid enough to vote for Democrats for the past 90 years, but they aren't the only ones. And it's the God Damn Democrats who are flooding the country with third world immigrants, starting with Ted Kennedy who was an IRISH CATHOLIC -- as is Brandon...

And I'm not sure about your claim about the demographics of the 18-24 demographic, but it does raise an interesting question of variance, one which you might have some credibility asking if you toned down your flagrant racism.

[Defenderz]

Catholics are problems too, don't get me wrong, but Jews are at the forefront of every stupid leftist movement, without exception.

I'm no t looking for credibility. I speak the truth. Anyone who doesn't recognize the superiority of certain peoples is not fit to be a conservative.

[Frank Drackman]

You’re not Superior to anyone

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

You get neither.

[Dr. Ed 2]

You are a bigot, not a conservative, and there is a difference.

[Absaroka]

If I'm reading that right, a substantial majority of young whites believe whites are oppressors. Is that a Lake Wobegone thing - all the other whites are oppressors, but not me, or do they believe they are personally oppressing people? If the latter, do they plan to keep on being an oppressor, or to change whatever they are doing that they consider to be oppressive?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Stockholm syndrome.

They've been told since the age of 5 that they are responsible for all the evil in the world and they eventually believe it. It's why self destructive behavior, e.g. suicide and drug overdose deaths, are increasing in the demographic.

[David Nieporent]

Is that your professional opinion as a janitor?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Are you a janitor?

I ask because you seem to be fixated with it.

And a janitor working for the Commonwealth makes good money and has a lot lower blood pressure...

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

You didn't answer his question.

[Bwaaah]

"Is that your professional opinion as a janitor?"

It takes a PHD to be blind to the truth in what DrEd2 said.

But, yes, "even a janitor" gets the point. (If I recall correctly, they were never welcome in the faculty lounge, except to clean up after people who didn't clean up their own messes.)

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

I don't have a PhD, and what he wrote seemed like complete bullshit to me.

[David Nieporent]

.

It takes a PHD to be blind to the truth in what DrEd2 said.

You think young white people are committing suicide because some imaginary boogeyman has been telling them since age five that they are responsible for all the evil in the world? Are you mentally ill?

[VinniUSMC]

You don't think that [a substantial majority of] young white people have been told since age five that they are responsible for all the evil in the world? Are you blind, deaf and mute?

[Dr. Ed 2]

18-24 means that you haven't been in the workplace long enough to see the minorities advancing faster than you are -- at 24 you can still be idealistic enough to believe that things are still fair. It's when you get into your late 20s that you really start to notice that they aren't and it goes downhill from there.

I'd love to see a gender and racial breakdown but with a sample this small that wouldn't be possible. And what surprises me is that the "Jews as oppressors" statistic wasn't higher

[Bwaaah]

Notable is that Harvard/Harris seems to be hiding the underlying gender/party data that they typically included on their website until last month. (See October crosstabs, and previous at https://harvardharrispoll.com/).

If the October data is representative, which it almost certainly is, then the ugly fact is that anti-Israel pro-Hamas sentiments are twice as common in self-described Democrats than in Republicans. One third of Democrats are now illiberal leftists, and the other two-thirds are hiding from the wrath of their illiberal wing. It took fear of "Antisemitism" (their cry, not mine) to wake them up to how hateful woke ideology is.

[Frank Drackman]

Maybe killing our next generation isn’t such a bad thing after all

[Bwaaah]

That should be fine. Just don't say it on campus.

[a.heroic.dose]

Israel runs a police state where over 5 million people are denied basic human rights. It's a conflation of Judaism with zionism that leads to the dumb result. Perhaps if the question asked, "are zionists oppressors," we could've gleaned a more useful result.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

And Hamas, Saudi kings, Iranian ayatollahs, Syrian dictators, all those wonderful people are so much better, ne?

Don't forget Trump; everyone, well, half of everyone, says he wants to be a dictator. And Biden, don't forget him either; everyone, or at least the other half of everyone, says he already is a dictator.

[Longtobefree]

But just for one day.
Biden has been at it for years - - - - - - - -

[David Nieporent]

.

Israel runs a police state where over 5 million people are denied basic human rights.

Israel runs a liberal democracy where none of its citizens are denied basic human rights. There are ~2 million people in Gaza, a place that Israel does not run at all (or at least not until the last month or so) denied basic human rights by their fanatically Islamic Palestinian oppressors, and ~3 million in the West Bank, which Israel does run in part, though those people are actually under the day-to-day control of the Palestinian Authority, which is also Palestinian.

[Michael Ejercito]

The sad truth is that war sucks for civilian populations.

It sucked for the Germans and the Japanese and the Koreans and the Vietnamese.

[grb]

David Nieporent : "Israel runs a liberal democracy..."

If you discuss this issue with one of those college protestors who support the Palestinians, you'll probably hear a story where Palestinians are the poster child of victimhood. But they'll be nothing about their 75yrs of bloody terrorism, bungled opportunities and hopeless corruption. They'll quickly pass over the grisly violence of the October 07 attacks. They'll ignore the irredeemable loathsomeness of Hamas. They'll carelessly bandy about the term "Zionism" despite its tenuous connection with Israel's current actions and ignoring it's core connection to Israel's existence as a state. They'll chant cheap slogans & schemes that often pretend-away the existence of millions of Israeli citizens (as if they don't exist). Everything is dumbed-down to fit their cartoon narrative. Their ignorance of history and plain day-to-day happenings is so willful as to be dishonest.

And if you discuss the issue with someone who supports the Israelis, odds are you get exactly the same. Now I'm in the office past midnight, have an impossible amount of work to do and am tired, so have little stomach for a useless, pointless debate, so :

1. I won't waste time discussing whether "Gaza, a place that Israel does not run at all" accurately describes completely sealing off the land, sea, and air that contains two million stateless people and only letting the bare survival minimum of everything in.

2. Or whether a "liberal democacy" has primary citizens and second-class citizens, with every single government action or policy favoring the former over the latter.

3. Instead, I'll just cut/paste Kevin Drum, who is a supporter of Israel but refuses to be dishonest. He asks where the support for Palestinians among young people comes from. He observes this is what they've seen their entire life:

"A West Bank under rigid military rule that administers one justice system for Israelis and a different, far harsher one, for Palestinians. Roadblocks, travel restrictions, segregation, checkpoints, Israeli-only roads, and countless other indignities of daily life. Censorship and long lists of banned books. Restrictions on visitors. Military tribunals that imprison thousands of Palestinians on specious grounds, including hundreds held in "administrative detention" without even the charade of a trial. Construction of a 400-mile prison wall manned by military guards who shoot anyone (on the Palestinian side) who gets too close. Steady carving up of the West Bank that splinters Palestinian territory into Swiss cheese and makes a mockery of any future Palestinian state. Military raids against Palestinian towns. Extremist outposts that are tacitly supported even though they're illegal even under Israeli law. Settler violence against Palestinians that's rarely punished. Routine land seizures from Palestinian enclaves."

This post from Drum was immediately followed by a second providing the historical context of Arab intransigence and Palesinian bungling which he thinks provides a (partial) context for the first. I'll link both below because people should read both, not just the one they prefer.

Last quibble : This quote : " ... 3 million in the West Bank, which Israel does run in part, though those people are actually under the day-to-day control of the Palestinian Authority ..." is kinda off the mark in a few ways.

Israel controls 60% of the West Bank with absolute iron-hand authority. The remaining 40% of the area is only nominally managed by the toothless PA. The Israelis have chewed-up this 40% with fortified settlements and Israeli-only roads. They control everything that enters the area. They control the economy. They control the movements of Palestinians who travel the shortest distance where they live. Their forces move freely thru the area and raid wherever & whenever they want (there being scores of such raids since the war began). The Israelis have erected steel gates at the entrances to the overwhelming majority of Palestinian villages that allows the army to seal them off within minutes. Israel can and does impose curfews across the West Bank and will close the entire area for up to eleven days during Jewish holidays. The region is also under constant surveillance to an almost Orwellian degree. So "actually under the day-to-day control of the Palestinian Authority" does stretches the actual situation a bit .....

https://jabberwocking.com/seeing-israel-through-young-eyes/

https://jabberwocking.com/a-brief-history-of-modern-palestine/

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

That's an impressive way to not waste time. I'll put as much credence in the post as the excuse for the post.

[Commenter_XY]

grb, I have read Drum's work, from time to time. Thank you for those links. If anything, I read to try to better understand the perspective.

[David Nieporent]

.

Israel controls 60% of the West Bank with absolute iron-hand authority.

Yes, but just as the GOP's argument about the number of counties won by Trump vs. Biden is irrelevant, so is this statistic. Land isn't people. You're referring to Area C, but only 10% of Palestinians live in Area C.

I'm not saying that Israel doesn't eventually need to give over control of much of this area — it does — but the raw stat doesn't provide an accurate picture of Palestinian living.

[David Nieporent]

(For clarity, 10% of West Bank Palestinians live in Area C; less than 10% of total Palestinians do.)

[Bwaaah]

Get this: while 79% of the 18 to 24 group support the oppressor/oppressed ideology, only 51% believe that ideology is helpful. 49% of that group believe the ideology is hurtful to society.

WTF? Do that many just want to burn it all down?

[Commenter_XY]

Professor Volokh, I looked at the results here, and quickly realized the issue here is not ideology. No Professor.

The issue is biology, Professor Volokh. It is a biological fact* that young people's brains are not fully developed and matured until their mid-twenties (25+). Those 18-24 respondents quite literally have undeveloped brains. VC Conspirators, if you have children, then you know exactly what Commenter_XY means when he says young adults have undeveloped brains. And you know in your gut I am right. 🙂 [For those of you w/o children, you simply cannot understand]

*Not that I want to muddy the waters here, but gender is a biological fact, too. 🙂

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Could this explain why young people are recruited as soldiers for neocon wars?

[David Nieporent]

What are "neocon wars"?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Iraq (at least Iraq 2.0), Syria, etc.

[BillyG]

Could this explain why young people vote for bigger government & Democrats?

[Bwaaah]

Yes (re: development), and yes (re: gender). The more I think about this, the more I think you're pointing to a very significant differentiating factor.

College women are politically unreachable and inconsolable at this point. Politically, they are stuck in a rigid monoculture. This would explain why so many of them support oppressor/oppressed ideology even though they believe it's harmful.

If nobody noticed, Harvard/Harris routinely posted the data underlying the results, until last months. The "crosstabs" data includes gender and party preferences of survey participants.

I believe they are withholding party/gender breakdowns (and only revealing age groups for certain "sensitive" questions) to obscure the unfortunately lopsided pro-Hamas, anti-Israel sentiment that leans heavily toward self-declared Democrats. The October poll results showed how outsized anti-Isreal sentiment is among Democrats when compared to Republicans. The numbers probably got even worse in November, and now, they are hidden.

But to your point, it is their age, and a significant gender-based emotional bias, that accounts for their anti-Israel pro-Palestinian leaning, not their party affiliation.

[Ken Arromdee]

>It is a biological fact* that young people’s brains are not fully developed and matured until their mid-twenties (25+).

No it isn't.

https://slate.com/technology/2022/11/brain-development-25-year-old-mature-myth.html

[VinniUSMC]

Yes it is. The only thing that the article disproves is the belief that there is something magical about "25". I'd say most people don't believe 25 is magically mature, but then again people believe in a 6000 year old flat Earth, so I won't make that argument.

From the article:

1) There’s consensus among neuroscientists that brain development continues into the 20s, but there’s far from any consensus about any specific age that defines the boundary between adolescence and adulthood.

2) We’re still not there with research to really say the brain is mature at 25, because we still don’t have a good indication of what maturity even looks like.

3) In many studies, though, neuroscientists define maturity as the point at which changes in the brain level off. This is the metric researchers considered in determining that the prefrontal cortex continues developing into people’s mid-20s.

TLDR: The brain continues to grow/change/etc into the mid-20s. "25" is a myth, in the same way that being 18 to vote is a "myth". It's just a number people use. People mature physically, mentally and emotionally at different rates. Duh?

[John F. Carr]

As a wise man once said, if you aren't chanting "from the river to the sea" at 20 you have no heart, but if you don't back Israel at age 40 you have no head.

I wonder if college age respondents will grow out of it, or if they represent the future of America.

[Bwaaah]

In their attempt to contact their own lovingness, they embraced the "anti-hate" ideology of their own oppressors: loathsome academics. Now they are discovering that despite the pretty face, anit-hate ideologues are the most uniformly hateful faction in the country. (What could possibly be wrong with hating an oppressor?)

[Gasman]

Alternate headline for poll: "Huge majority of people currently or recently under the tutelage of mostly liberal and far left college professors think differently than the rest of us"
The young can't help being young and gullible.
College presidents are feckless before their faculty.

[Randal]

Better headline:

"Poorly Constructed Poll Produces Misleading Results, Clickbait"

For example, the first question has two parts. Which part were people actually answering, the oppression part or the affirmative action part?

[Michael Ejercito]

Here was a poem I found on Usenet newsgroups.

https://groups.google.com/g/Soc.Culture.Israel/c/9r3guA2dKjE/m/Yh8AssMiAQAJ

"Oh, Hamas attacked the Jews,
And now they are learning bad news,
Many of Hamas are dead,
And their women like to give dirty head,
Oh, what can I say about Hamas,
Satan the devil is their boss,
I really don’t know what to say,
Many in Hamas are gay,
They attacked Kibbutz Aza with their might,
Now they a learning the Jews know how to fight.
Hamas murdered little children that they hate,
Hamas has a big fat puss gut woman for a mate.
Soon Hamas will be all done,
As Tzhal kills each and every one."

[jdgalt1]

This poll result shows why it is morally imperative to homeschool your kids, at least until the schools can be purged of this CRT brainwashing.

Jews have been victims of bias for thousands of years, and thus have a claim to be an oppressed group far older and stronger than any BIPOC group.

[Michael Ejercito]

Who was it that told employers with over fifty employees that they had to fire employees who refused one vaccine?

It was not Trump.

https://apnews.com/article/lifestyle-joe-biden-business-health-travel-caae4c9b16be16c4ad43500fb240b801

[Randal]

Yes, they're really bad questions designed to create clickbait, not useful insights.

[David Nieporent]

Did you read your link before posting it?

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Exactly the excuse you'd expect an oppressor to use.

[Randal]

Lol but actually you're not wrong. Push polls, lying with statistics, and redefining vocabulary are all potent weapons for oppressing the dumb masses.

Not quite as effective as straight-up charismatic cult brainwashing, but close.