The wacky fringes of politics
I often wonder whether many of the responses are simply by people expressing their political frustrations as opposed to things that they actually believe. For example, if people say that they believe Obama is a Muslim, is it because they just dislike him so much that they will latch on to anything that comes up to show it? However, that doesn't explain why a third of Democrats blame "the Jews" for the financial crisis.
There’s the 32 percent of Democrats who blame “the Jews” for the financial crisis. There’s the 25 percent of African-Americans who believe the AIDS virus was created in a government lab. There’s support for state secession, which may have been higher among liberals in the Bush era than among Republicans in the age of Obama. And there’s the theory that the Bush White House knew about 9/11 in advance, which a third of Democrats endorsed as recently as 2007. . . .
Labels: conspiracytheories, poll
posted by John Lott at 8:41 PM
3 Comments:
John,
The louder the chorus gets, the more momentum and energy in the movement. The more energy the more conviction. The more conviction the better the turnout.
People don't engage in rational debate in politics, if they ever did. They can't. We are too far apart for compromise. So each side becomes increasingly extreme in order to maintain the momentum.
People don't believe these things as if they're scientific. they believe them as if they are myths: representative 'literature' that activates the sentiments.
THe real issue here is the disintegration of trust in government, and possibly in the very existence of the country. We have passed the point where people will trust that 'it will all work out'.
So if the outrageousness of people's comments is surprising you - then you haven't seen anything yet. We have a full on culture war going on. And the boomers, and their values, are just about running out of relevance. The content and tone of political conversation is changing. And those people who are entering it, do not have a concept of 'country' as have generations past. They are not 'americans'. They happen to live in america. But they have become tribes.
John, I agree completely. People use it as a way of expressing disapoint, anger, and/or frustration. For example, I have never taken the numbers about percentage of people who believe Obama is a Muslim literally. People are using their choice of answer as a vent, sort of an emotional lash-out at the president.
Curt, do you think the lack of rational debate applies to competing entities only or does it also manifest internally, as in within an administration?
Well, John, anytime it comes to polls, you have to remember that half the people surveyed, by definition, are below average in intelligence. Any answer provided in a survey will always attract a percentage of respondees.
For one, I often resent the intrusion of so many surveys, that I intentionally adopt an "answer profile" that in no way represents my true feelings. Therefore, though I believe that surveys can be scientifically conducted, I never neglect to consider the margin of error and the statistical confidence level of the research.
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