How do you negotiate with crazy people?

[andrewducker]

• 67 percent of Republicans (and 40 percent of Americans overall) believe that Obama is a socialist.
• 57 percent of Republicans (32 percent overall) believe that Obama is a Muslim
• 45 percent of Republicans (25 percent overall) agree with the Birthers in their belief that Obama was "not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president"
• 38 percent of Republicans (20 percent overall) say that Obama is "doing many of the things that Hitler did"
• Scariest of all, 24 percent of Republicans (14 percent overall) say that Obama "may be the Antichrist."

From

I mean, I know a lot of, say, Conservatives in the UK have beliefs I don't agree with.  But the vast majority of them, so far as I can tell, just have different experiences to me, and different opinions about how things should be organised.  They don't believe that the leader of the oppositon is the fucking antichrist, or other things that can be disproved by 30 seconds with Google.

Comments

[pigeonhed.livejournal.com]

with no evidence to back this up?

They have plenty of 'evidence' for these claims. They keep being told it by their leaders, their columnists, their politicians. That's their 'evidence' they trust the people who tell them this stuff, so they have no need to go check it.

Just like you believe this article by John Avlon which may or may not be slanting the interpretations of the poll to make a point but is largely a plug for his book. Note that I don't know what spin he has put on the figures, but nor do you. And that Andrew, is the problem here. We all believe the people we want to believe. And as you demonstrated a few weeks ago, how the question was asked makes a difference to the answers received. 'Obama is a Muslim, agree or disagree?' will get very different answers to 'What religion is Obama?'

[andrewducker]

They keep being told it by their leaders, their columnists, their politicians. That's their 'evidence' they trust the people who tell them this stuff, so they have no need to go check it.

And I object to that on a terribly deep level. I don't trust my leaders, my columnists or my politicians. It's obvious with only a little experience, that all of those people can lie, be corrupt, and be mistaken. I listen to people from "the other side" a fair bit, and I deliberately read around to try and get a balanced view. If you're only ever reading your side's view on things then you're asking to be taken advantage of.

And of course the polling isn't perfect. It never will be. But this is hardly the first time I've come across figures like this, and it isn't contradicted by any of the data I'm getting out of the USA.