Disturbing the twitterverse

 On September 11, 2020, Paul Krugman tweeted:  "Overall, Americans took 9/11 pretty calmly. Notably, there wasn't a mass outbreak of anti-Muslim sentiment and violence, which could all too easily have happened. And while GW Bush was a terrible president, to his credit he tried to calm prejudice, not feed it."  His tweet got a strong negative reaction on Twitter, as people pointed to examples of anti-Muslim prejudice and hate crimes.  But Krugman was clearly right if you judge the reaction by historical standards.

 A few years ago, I had a post on public opinion about the internment camps for Japanese-Americans during the Second World War.  There were no survey questions that directly asked about approval or disapproval of the camps, but on December 1942, a Gallup poll asked "Do you think the Japanese who were moved inland from the Pacific coast should be allowed to return to the Pacific coast when the war is over?"  Only 35% said yes, 48% said no, and 15% weren't sure.  

 Here are a few more examples of public opinion towards people of Japanese ancestry at the time.  In April 1944, a NORC survey asked "After the war, do you think Japanese living in the United States should have as good a chance as white people to get any kind of job, or do you think white people should have the first chance at any kind of job?" 16% said they should have an equal chance, 21% gave a conditional answer (like "if loyal" or "if a citizen"), and 61% said whites should have the first chance.  The same survey asked whether we should let in "a certain number" of people of different nationalities after the war was over or "stop some of the groups from coming at all."  For Japanese, only 20% said we should allow some in, and 75% said we should stop them from coming in at all.  

In April 1945 another NORC survey asked whether "Japanese who are loyal American citizens should have as good as all other people to get any kind of job, or do you think other people should have the first chance" 56% said they should have as good a chance, and 39% said "other people" should have the first chance.  That is, almost 40% endorsed ethnic discrimination against "loyal American citizens."  A randomly selected half were asked about about "Japs [sic] now living in the United States who are not American citizens".  Only 6% said "as good a chance," 52% said other people first, and 32% said that they should be sent back to Japan.  The same survey asked "Of all the Japanese who are American citizens, about how many do you think would want to do something against the United States if they had the chance?" 15% said practically all of them, 9% said most, another 9% said about half.  That's a total of 33% saying half or more.  34% said a few, 19% said practically none, and 15% said they didn't know. 

In my next post, I'll discuss survey evidence about the effect of 9/11 on attitudes towards Muslims.  

[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]