Almost immediately after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed an unarmed woman in Minneapolis, the Trump administration wasted little time settling on a narrative that it expected Americans to believe: The victim, a 37-year-old mother named Renee Nicole Good, was the villain of the story.
As far as the White House and its allies were concerned, Good had committed “an act of domestic terrorism,” as part of a “coordinated” conspiratorial effort, hatched by people “being trained” to use vehicles as weapons.
The unbelievable claims were discredited by video evidence and by local officials. The president and his team peddled the lines anyway, hoping not only to smear the victim but also to convince Americans not to believe their lying eyes.
There’s some evidence to suggest those efforts haven’t worked, at least not yet.
The latest Economist/YouGov poll, for example, found that the vast majority of Americans are familiar with what transpired in Minneapolis, and by a 20-point margin, people saw the shooting as unjustified (50% vs. 30%). The same survey found that a 56% majority of Americans believe that both state and federal officials should be responsible for investigating the shooting, which is the opposite of the Trump administration’s position.
Just as notably, the Economist/YouGov poll found that a 47% plurality said ICE is making Americans less safe, while a 46% plurality said ICE should be abolished altogether.
This is not the only available data on the subject. Consider the latest Quinnipiac poll: Days after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent fatally shot a Minneapolis woman in an incident that was captured on video, voters 82 – 18 percent say they have seen a video of the shooting and a majority (53 percent) think the shooting was not justified, 35 percent think it was justified, and 12 percent did not offer an opinion, according to a Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pea-ack) University national poll of registered voters released today. The same survey found that 57% of Americans disapprove of the way ICE is enforcing immigration laws, while 40% approve. Not surprisingly, there’s an enormous partisan gap, though it’s worth emphasizing that among self-described independent voters, opposition to ICE has reached a nearly 2-to-1 margin (64% disapprove, while 33% approve). Put another way, if members of Team Trump expected their counternarrative to convince the American mainstream, they have reason to be disappointed.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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