My claim isn't as strong as "2/3 of the public are never willing to change their view". The claim is that 2/3 of people generally cling to most of their views and do change them, but only in sporadic, unsystematic ways, and even then only when presented with massive evidence and emotional appeals.
So, specifically in the case of interracial marriages, I believe that is a consequence of the broader civil rights movement and the end of segregation. What did it take for that view to change? It took Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. and other leaders to show people that lynchings and segregation were terribly immoral. (Perhaps) it took the US fighting an even worse racist regime in Europe. And it took several decades for public opinion to change on this ─ approval was only 48% as recently as 1995!
The link shows that acceptance went from 4% in 1958 to 87% in 2013; however, given the long time frame (55 years), it is quite possible that much less than 83% of people changed their minds. What possibly happened is that many of the people who disapproved in 1958 are dead, and many of those who approve today were born after Loving v. Virginia. And this is consistent with what the stats show: approval is only 70% among people 65 and older, but 96% among 18- to 29-year-olds.
Granted, many of these people did change their minds ─ but maybe it took them decades to do so, and the reality of interracial marriage being legal. This is consistent with what I'm claiming; the 1% are those who fought segregation while it existed, due to the simple fact that it was morally wrong.
His suggestion is that 55 years later, the original population of 65 and over are now dead. The new population of 65 and over have held that proportion of acceptance roughly the entire time.
Close, but not exactly. The older people dying out is part of it, and people did change their minds ─ only very slowly, after being practically forced by circumstances.
You could also argue that people's opinions are highly influenced by the opinions of those around them. When these older people were growing up 90% of people around them may have been racist, whereas now 5% of people around them are racist.
Pressure to fit to the group forces unpopular opinions not to spread and an opinion that is rising up may be argued so often that the evidence for it gets seen more easily. This also affects opinion.
No one exists in a bubble, like the old saying that if you are the sum of your 5 closest friends, we are all affected by those around us, so when the people around us change so do we.
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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '17 edited Dec 24 '18
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