13% of Americans are sure Barack Obama is the Anti-Christ. A similar percentage isn't sure but think that's definitely possible.
Despite everything their country has endured over the past five years and, especially, during 2012, 37% of Americans still claim global warming is a hoax.
The survey, which was conducted by Public Policy Polling, asked a sample of American voters about a number of conspiracy theories, phrasing the questions in eye-catching language that will have the country's educators banging their heads on their desks.
The survey also showed that 37% of Americans thought that global warming was a hoax, while 12% were not sure and a slim majority – 51% – agreed with the overwhelming majority view of the scientific establishment and thought that it was not. The survey also revealed that 28% of people believed in a sinister global New World Order conspiracy, aimed at ruling the whole world through authoritarian government. Another 25% were "not sure" and only a minority of American voters – 46% – thought such a conspiracy theory was not true.
The survey was carried out in order to explore how voters' political beliefs impact on their willingness to embrace conspiracy theories – it did indeed find that the partisan divide that is blamed for many problems in Washington DC also extends to the world of paranoia, aliens and Sasquatch. For example, when it comes to thinking global warming is a hoax some 58% of Republicans agreed and 77% of Democrats disagreed. While 20% of Republicans believed Obama is the antichrist heralding the End Times, only 13% of independents did and just 6% of Democrats.
"Even crazy conspiracy theories are subject to partisan polarization, especially when there are political overtones involved. But most Americans reject the wackier ideas out there about fake moon landings and shape-shifting lizards," said PPP president Dean Debnam.
What is unclear is whether this survey simply reflects America's conspiracy theory phenomenon accurately or at a low-water mark. Overall, the U.S. is in a relatively calm state at the moment. 9/11 is finally fading in prominence. The Iraq War is mercifully over, at least for the Americans. The Afghan War is winding down. The housing/sub-prime mortgage bubble impacts are waning.
Yet this could be just the calm before the storm. America's debt crisis remains. Washington's dysfunctional gridlock, despite occasional promising signs, is far from over. The ravages of climate change, expected to extend last year's severe drought through 2013 and threatening the U.S. coasts with sea-level rise, present the sort of factor that can rekindle American-style conspiracy theorism.
It's easy to think of this as the ramblings of a gaggle of oddballs but, in a nation as sharply divided as today's United States, with each side already suspicious of the other, this is the very sort of thing that contributes to division and makes much harder efforts to restore social cohesion.
I kind of sympathize. They know something's wrong. Nobody's allowed to tell them what's really going on. But weird shit that doesn't matter is fine, it's harmless to the establishment and sells papers, and Obama being the Antichrist and suchlike twaddle is actively pushed on them by far more media than lefties can muster.
ReplyDeleteSo they end up thinking ridiculous crap--they need some kind of explanation for why their lives are squalid and/or absurd, and the truth ain't available so they'll swallow what is.
I wonder how many manage to simultaneously think Obama is the antichrist and a Moslem.
Interesting points, PLG. Thanks. I think that keeping a significant part of the populace utterly addled is a tangible benefit to those who would confound them.
ReplyDelete