What do polling experts have to say about Rassmussen Reports using a known white supremacist slogan in a poll?

Question

Poor Scott Adams of Dilbert's fame did a monumental career seppuku by going on a rant about Black people. This was motivated by his interpretation of the findings of a poll by Rassmussen Reports.

1* Do you agree or disagree with this statement: “It’s OK to be white.”

2* Do you agree or disagree with this statement: “Black people can be racist, too.”

Thing is the exact phrase used in question 1 is a well known, long standing meme by white nationalist/supremacists ref: It's Okay To Be White | ADL.

The phrase “It’s Okay To Be White” is a slogan popularized in late 2017 as a trolling campaign by members of the controversial discussion forum 4chan.

The original flier campaign occurred in late October 2017 and a similar campaign took place at the same time in 2018, but use of the phrase has extended far beyond the flier campaigns.

A previous question asked about Scott Adams, the poll and the results of that poll. This is not this question.

Rather, reputable polling organization live and die by the quality of their questions. Rassmussen Reports, while accused of aligning perhaps too much with US conservatives, would seem to aim for credibility as a provider of polls.

Skipping all the Dilbert brouhaha, as well as the results of the poll, what has come to light in how Rassmussen, ostensibly a major polling organization used, 100% verbatim, a historically known white supremacist meme? And a question, I would add, that even without the white supremacist association, seems to be unclear/deficient in determining whether or not a respondent is actually prejudiced against white people. Question phrasing being a core competency of a polling organization.

What does Rassmussen Reports and major polling organizations have to say about that?

No, I am not interested in hearing the interpretation that it was trolling. While I am somewhat sympathetic to that interpretation, I am more interested in how is this is being discussed by Rassmussen's peers. And how Rassmussen defends using that particular question. Has anyone neutral with credentials in the field given a more sympathetic explanation on this choice?

Because, to me, a major polling organization dropping the ball like this, and the expert coverage around this failure, is waaaay more interesting than Scott Adams going on a rant (which did put this idiocy on the map).

Answer 1

Well, I'm not sure one can undisputedly meet the criteria for answering the 1st half of the Q, given the usual accusations of left-wing bias against the academia and media being professed in the (right-wing part of the) US. But since you're also asking about Rasmussen's response to that, it's probably fair enough to have some leeway there.

So yeah, the Washington Post has coverage like:

“Anyone who did know the history of it or who had a suspicion about the history of it might react to that Rasmussen question with some skepticism,” said Nicholas Valentino, a political scientist at the University of Michigan who studies racial attitudes and public emotions. “And that wouldn’t be a sign that they didn’t like White people.”

In a video that Rasmussen posted on Twitter alongside the survey results, head pollster Mark Mitchell presented the question as a good-faith effort to capture public opinion — something he claimed Rasmussen is unique in doing. (“The reality of American public opinion does not match what you’ve being told in the news, at schools or colleges, by corporations and by your public officials.”) Mitchell suggested that mainstream journalists would hesitate to report on the result of the question because it “conclusively undermines the current racial orthodoxy.”

“All we did was ask very simple questions that should be uncontroversial, and we are reporting on what Americans told us, nothing more,” Mitchell said in the video. While Adams cited the number of skeptical Black respondents to raise race-based alarm, Mitchell cited the majority of respondents of all races who approve of the phrase to take aim at liberal-leaning groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Center for designating it a problematic phrase.

In recent years, Rasmussen has shifted from serving primarily as a right-leaning polling firm to more actively amplifying conservative causes, with a website featuring commentary from conservative and libertarian pundits. In the video about the recent survey question, Mitchell also hyped polling results that he said showed “nearly half the country is concerned that vaccines are causing a significant number of unexplained deaths.” (The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said there is no evidence that coronavirus vaccines are causing deaths.) On Twitter, the firm also elevated misinformation about alleged fraud in the 2020 presidential election and highlighted conspiracy theories suggesting that the Jan. 6 insurrection was a “set-up.”

I.e. they get some academic to lambast Rasmussen, quote Rasmussen's' claim to innocence [in response], but at the same time their self-professed agenda is illustrated slightly more broadly, although maybe that's what someone would call a hatchet job? (What else did you expect?)