Everything you need to know about ranked-choice voting in one spot. Click to learn more!

Scott Rasmussen's Number of the Day for November 19, 2021

From Ballotpedia
Jump to: navigation, search
NOTD 11 19 21.png

By Scott Rasmussen

The Number of the Day columns published on Ballotpedia reflect the views of the author.

November 19, 2021: Seventy-nine percent (79%) of voters believe that free speech protects minority rights. A Scott Rasmussen national survey also showed that 64% believe no one is empowered more by free speech than the historically marginalized and dispossessed.[1]

Twenty-two percent (22%) think that those who support free speech are enemies of diversity. Sixty-nine percent (69%) reject that view.[1]

Frederick Douglass called free speech “the great moral renovator of society and government.” Seventy-six percent (76%) of voters agree.

Douglass, born into slavery became one of the nation’s greatest orators. On the eve of the Civil War, he gave a speech observing that free speech “is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power. Thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, founded in injustice and wrong, are sure to tremble, if men are allowed to reason of righteousness, temperance, and of a judgment to come in their presence.”

As it applied to the dominant issue of his day, Douglass said “Slavery cannot tolerate free speech. Five years of its exercise would banish the auction block and break every chain in the South.”[1]



Each weekday, Scott Rasmussen’s Number of the Day explores interesting and newsworthy topics at the intersection of culture, politics, and technology.


  • To see other recent numbers, check out the archive.

Scott Rasmussen’s Number of the Day is published by Ballotpedia weekdays at 8:00 a.m. Eastern. Click here to check out the latest update.

The Number of the Day is broadcast on local stations across the country. An archive of these broadcasts can be found here.

Columns published on Ballotpedia reflect the views of the author.

Ballotpedia is the nonprofit, nonpartisan Encyclopedia of American Politics.

Get the Number of the Day in your inbox


See also


Footnotes