Jul 31st, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Comparative Obama Misconceptions
In the wake of a new poll showing that only 42 percent of self-identified Republicans believe that Barack Obama is an American citizen, Brendan Nyhan compiles a useful chart of Obama-related misconceptions:
As you can see, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that the number of correct responses is much higher on the citizenship question than the religion question. On the other hand, the proportion of incorrect answers is also much higher on the citizenship question among Republicans, which suggests that the encouragement of this myth by conservative pundits and Republican politicians has begun to activate the GOP base.
Yep.
51 Responses to “Comparative Obama Misconceptions”
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July 31st, 2009 at 12:21 pm
42 freakin percent? Can some enterprising political scientist explain to me how our political system is more stable than those crazy Eastern Bloc countries or South American post-dictatorships? I thought that acceptance of the legitimacy of political leaders was kinda important in a democratic system.
July 31st, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Well I think it is more dissonance reduction in action. For example, “America is not ready for a black president, but we elected one, therefore it must be the result of a fraud (ACORN), a lie (he’s not a real American) or systemic collusion (the liberal media).” Each of these reduction strategies are more unlikely than admitting “I am not ready for a black president.”
July 31st, 2009 at 12:42 pm
This poll of believe in Obama’s place of birth based on region of the country that you live in blew me away. If you don’t want to go to the link, it shows that Birthers are an almost exclusively southern phenomenon. I must admit though, it’s such as drastic showing that it does raise some red flags regarding poll legitimacy for me.
July 31st, 2009 at 12:43 pm
How would this compare to a poll conducted in 2001 asking Democrats whether George W. Bush won Florida in the 2000 election? Partisans are always going to have sour grapes after a loss.
July 31st, 2009 at 12:48 pm
My God people are so ignorant. People make the argument all the time that consumers are irrational and uninformed and that therefore their choices should be restricted. Why in the world does no one make the same argument about democracy? Why should you give people who are criminally uninformed political power?
July 31st, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Apples and oranges. First, Obama was actually born in Hawaii and this is a fact. Second, Gore winning the popular vote is also a fact, thus the unprecedented court decision. You can’t compare these issues. It would be more reasonable to compare (as Jon Stewart did) the “moon landing deniers” to the “birthers.” As both are documented factual events that are being disputed by a relatively small fringe group.
July 31st, 2009 at 12:56 pm
DIet Coke #6,
While I agree that the underlying substance is extremely different, there is some point there. After SCOTUS decided Bush v. Gore, and certainly by the time Bush was sworn in, GWB WAS president. You could make a non-trivial argument that he should not have been made president, but I don’t think you could make one that he wasn’t in fact president.
Arguments against legitimacy should be viewed as extreme and dangerous even when substantively non-trivial. People shouldn’t through around charges like that unless they are deadly serious, because that is the sort of stuff that will undermine our democracy.
July 31st, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Seriously, you guys suck at making graphs. There are 9 different ways this thing could be interpreted the way you’ve got it labelled (or not labelled, as the case may be). 48% of public Christians mispercieve Obama! Or 48% of the public misperceives Obama as a Christian, meanwhile 10% misperceive him as Muslim — which is actually less confusing than some people misperceiving him a citizen while other misperceiving him as a non-citizen, since you kind of actually have to be one or the other.
July 31st, 2009 at 1:06 pm
RTG, I agree with your larger point. I am saying that there is nothing to dispute with Obama’s birth situation. When politicians and media types mystify the argument “I’m not sure, there are questions,…etc.” My point is that people may have questioned the legitimacy of Bush winning in 2000, but at least there was some rational (albeit destructive) basis to do so. This is categorically not analogous to the “birther” stuff. “He is not president because he didn’t get more votes” is not equal to “He is not president because he is different/foreign/black, etc. and can’t possibly be legitimate.”
July 31st, 2009 at 1:09 pm
It’s simple, the GOP is more likely than the public to believe things that are not true.
July 31st, 2009 at 1:13 pm
There are 6 blue bars and 6 red bars rising up and heading towards 90. What is not to understand?
July 31st, 2009 at 1:15 pm
[...] (link via Matthew Yglesias) [...]
July 31st, 2009 at 1:15 pm
I must admit though, it’s such as drastic showing that it does raise some red flags regarding poll legitimacy for me.
I find that result at least plausible. I’d expect the South to be higher to begin with, and likely this is the sort of thing which can have positive feedback effects dependent on the percentage of other like-minded people around.
Anyway, if accurate, this isn’t going to help the GOP escape its decline into a purely regional party.
July 31st, 2009 at 1:33 pm
From the link: “A forthcoming DailyKos/Research 2000 poll found…”
Hahahahahahahaha… woo hoo, a Daily Kos poll! No bias there!
July 31st, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Hahahahahahahaha… woo hoo, a Daily Kos poll! No bias there!
Research 2000 is the actual pollster, and they have a perfectly decent reputation and track record.
July 31st, 2009 at 1:36 pm
“I find that result at least plausible.”
I find the regional results totally plausible as well. I’ve lived in every region of the country, and The South is the one region where objective reality is openly scoffed at. Change the question to “do you believe the Earth is more than 10,000 years old?” You’ll get the exact same results. The South is a region where the majority honestly believe that the Bible is a more scientifically accurate publication than the scientific journal Nature. In The South, there is a willful rejection of objective reality, and it creates a huge void that can only be filled with the Bible, supply-side economics, and loony conspiracy theories.
July 31st, 2009 at 1:39 pm
FAIL.
Now go look at the internals/crosstabs if you think the poll is “biased.” Then compare their numbers to other polls; oh that’s right, other polling orgs. don’t release their internals/crosstabs for free.
July 31st, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Without getting too conspiratorial, is it just me or is it possible that the Obama administration is intentionally not going out of their way to discourage this? The reason I say that is because though I think it may activate the Republican base, I think it isolates them. If Republicans have to pander to their constituency by not dismissing batshit crazy theories, then it could turn off moderates. It strikes me that beyond the small minority willing to give this idea any credulity that everyone else is disgusted by it. Thus, a person who could break either way politically could be turned off by the Republican leadership not doing everything they can to distance themselves from the nutjubs.
Maybe I’m overthinking things. Certainly the Obama administration could simply be thinking that there’s nothing to be gained by getting bogged down in the conversation, which is almost definitely true. But it seems possible to me that they’re taking a strategic approach of not even bothering to try to put the fire out simply because the fire ends up making their opponents look bad.
July 31st, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Research 2000 is the actual pollster, and they have a perfectly decent reputation and track record.
Yes they do – for non-partisan polls. But let’s assume for sh*ts and giggles that we don’t care who sponsors the poll, as long as it’s done by a respected pollster. Then it appears to me that a far lower percentage of Republicans believe that Obama is a non-citizen (28%) than the percentage of Democrats who are Troofers (42%).
July 31st, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Thanks for the link Matt. Interesting. 58% of Republicans believe that Obama is not a citizen. It confirms the informal studies I have performing at my local bars and pool rooms.
My analysis indicates 30% of whitey can’t stand the fact that the United States has a black man in the White House, and would “gun the nigger down” if given a half-chance. 30% accept him as President but aren’t happy about it. 20% like him a lot and believe he is the man for the job. The other 20% don’t know who is President.
July 31st, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Matt40, I think you’re on to something. It’s a win/win for Obama. It allows him to remain presidential by not responding to it (Nixon, “not punching down”), and it foments a response by the moderates of support for the prez. by disassociating themselves from the whackos.
July 31st, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Al seriously, you can’t criticize Daily Kos and then use “truthers” for a basis for comparison to “birthers.”
Markos banned “truthers” from his website many years ago because they are nuts!
July 31st, 2009 at 1:48 pm
is it just me or is it possible that the Obama administration is intentionally not going out of their way to discourage this?
The Obama Administration and the media are not “going out of their way to discourage this” – they are actively encouraging it (just look at Gibbs’s responses). There’s a reason that the media plays up stupid right-wing conspiracies and buries stupid left-wing conspriacies.
July 31st, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Interesting. 58% of Republicans believe that Obama is not a citizen.
You are not reading the chart correctly. 28% of Republicans believe that Obama is not a citizen.
July 31st, 2009 at 1:53 pm
“But let’s assume for sh*ts and giggles that we don’t care who sponsors the poll, as long as it’s done by a respected pollster.”
The key word is ‘respected.’ The poll you linked to was from Zogby, not a respected pollster. Look at his performance. He’s really bad at predicting things. Not necessarily biased, just wrong.
July 31st, 2009 at 2:04 pm
You are not reading the chart correctly. 28% of Republicans believe that Obama is not a citizen.
Let’s cut the crap and say that the 30% “don’t know” crowd are either bullshit artists like yourself and the GOP congresscritters who feed the meme with weasel phrases like “to the best of my knowledge” or people who aren’t prepared to say “he’s a foreigner” out loud.
Comment 2’s on the mark here: beyond the whole birfer wackjobbery, there’s a large proportion of GOP supporters who are using it as dissonance reduction for the election of a black president.
(I wish the pollsters had asked people if they knew where John McCain was born. That would be an interesting set of data.)
July 31st, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Perhaps the cause is that in the South the media doesn’t cover up the fact that Barry has refused to provide evidence that he was born in Hawaii.
July 31st, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Since references to pre-WWII Germany seem to be in vogue on the right these days, it is worth pointing out that the Nazis during the Weimar period similarly questioned the nationality and religion of leftist leaders they didn’t like.
July 31st, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Yes they do – for non-partisan polls. But let’s assume for sh*ts and giggles that we don’t care who sponsors the poll, as long as it’s done by a respected pollster. Then it appears to me that a far lower percentage of Republicans believe that Obama is a non-citizen (28%) than the percentage of Democrats who are Troofers (42%).
Zogby?!
Thanks for the chuckle Al.
July 31st, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Zogby does not have as good a reputation or track record as Research 2000.
Moreover, here is the question which people like the Truthers and Al are citing to plump their numbers:
That question was specifically designed to minimize the number of people who would select “Official Story” as their answer. Moreover, I think people could reasonably select “Let It Happen” on the basis of thinking about things like the infamous “Bin-Laden Determined To Attack Inside the United States” memo.
So what the Truthers, and now Al following in their footsteps, have done is lump together both the “Made It Happen” and “Let It Happen” people as “truthers”. But what actually occurred in the poll is that only 6.3% of Democrats answered “Made It Happen”–the vast bulk of Al’s number is the 36.3% who answered “Let It Happen”. And lots of people in lots of groups answered “Let It Happen”, including 27.1% of independents.
In short, Al is offering his usual partisan hackery in a last-ditch attempt to deflect attention from the increasingly embarrassing views of the people who are actually at the core of his party.
July 31st, 2009 at 2:49 pm
@19: Zogby is not a respected pollster (see, for example, here). Furthermore, your link doesn’t even support your claims; only 6% of Democrats agreed with the view that “certain US government elements actively planned or assisted some aspects of the attacks”.
Another 36% of Democrats, along with 27% of independents and 16% of Republicans, agreed that “certain elements in the US government knew the attacks were coming but consciously let them proceed for various political, military and economic motives”, which probably has something to do with that briefing embarrassingly titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside the United States”; I think there’s a bit of a gap between knowing *some* attacks were coming and deciding not to do anything about the possibility, and knowing *those particular* attacks were coming and consciously letting them proceed, but that belief certainly isn’t on the same level of looniness as the “controlled demolition” theory (if it can even be called that).
July 31st, 2009 at 2:50 pm
lots of people in lots of groups answered “Let It Happen”, including 27.1% of independents.
You’d almost think that the LIHOPers were basing their belief on things like a PDB titled “Bin Ladin Determined To Strike In U.S.”
I really hope Al is getting paid handsomely for this by some wingnut foundation, because it’s such a glorious waste of money.
July 31st, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Thanks for doing the homework on that DTM, while I tend to discount numbers like that on general impluasibility grounds, it’s nice to see the explanation behind the distortion, and what, if any, grain of truth it is based on.
July 31st, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Good job filleting Al, DTM. Believing that the Bush administration’s incompetence allowed the WTC attacks to happen is not Trooferism. The correct comparison is between the 28% of Republicans who believe Obama is not a citizen (Birfers) and the 6% of Democrats, if we believe Zogby, who believe the Bush administration made the 9/11 attacks happen. That is, 5X as many Republicans are delusional conspiracy theorists than Democrats. This fact may well explain why conservative media outlets like Fox and National Review Online tolerate and even push the birth-certificate conspiracy, while liberal outlets like MSNBC and Daily Kos have banned 9/11 conspiracists.
As for the Birfers: we saw during the previous administration, there are a great many people – mainly on the right – whose primary means of testing the truth of a proposition is to check their “gut.”
To a great number of conservatives, Barack Obama is not one of “us.” These are also the same people who are the least able to cope with the changes happening in our society. When these people grew up, everyone they knew was white. Now, they look around the mall and half the faces are a shade of brown. Gay people, walking around like they own the place! Christian prayers no longer led by public school teachers. This is why the Republican lady at the Mike Castle event ended her spiel about the birth certificate with “I want my country back!” – because this goes a great deal deeper than the formal rules about presidential qualifications.
This is why they believed the “Secret Muslim” conspiracy during the primary, and it’s why they believe the the “Kenyan citizen” conspiracy now. The fact of Barack Obama winning the presidency has become the focal point of all of their angst over the progress this country has made since the 1950s.
July 31st, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Re: Or 48% of the public misperceives Obama as a Christian, meanwhile 10% misperceive him as Muslim
Well, Obama is certainly not a Muslim. Many practising Christians, however, would argue that Obama is for all practical purposes an agnostic, rather than a Christian. On the basis of some remarks of Obama’s (”Jesus is a bridge between man and God”) some conservatives have accused him of practising the Arian heresy.
July 31st, 2009 at 3:22 pm
To be clear, while I think that Obama’s theology is seriously wrong, I do acknowledge him as a Christian.
July 31st, 2009 at 3:32 pm
There are a great deal of people in this country who don’t consider people who worship Jesus to be Christians, unless they belong to a certain subset of evangelical churches. Not Catholics, not Lutherans, not even certain evangelical sects.
On the other hand, there isn’t this kind of grey area, where people’s answers could indicate something else, in the citizenship question. The people saying Obama is not a citizen are using the same definition as everyone else.
July 31st, 2009 at 3:33 pm
I’ll restate something I posted on Balloon Juice the other day:
The famous Lee Atwater quote needs to be updated, now it should say:
“50 years ago you shouted nigger, 30 years ago you talked about crime and states rights, today you ask to see the President’s birth certificate”
That is all this is about pure and simple
July 31st, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Here is Al’s proof about Dems being “troofers”.
The Zogby question was:
And 42% of Dems answered yes.
Where does it say anything about Bush or Cheney bringing down the towers on purpose?
Al, again, lies in the hopes that people won’t follow his link.
July 31st, 2009 at 3:45 pm
My mistake. I looked at the wrong question.
Sorry Al
July 31st, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Screw the “Birther” stuff. Frankly, I’m starting to make a list of stuff I want to know/see …
1) The contents of the Nixonian “18 minute gap”
2) Trig Palin’s long form birth certificate
3) Obama’s long form birth certificate
4) John Kerry’s wartime records (via SF-180)
5) records from Countrywide on what politicians got VIP treatment (Countrywide is waiting for the subpoena)
6) the stuff Sandy Berger tried to lift from the US Archives
I’m open to more suggestions.
July 31st, 2009 at 4:00 pm
The Zogby question is very poorly worded:
The second option “…The second theory known as Let It Happen argues that certain elements in the US government
knew the attacks were coming but consciously let them proceed for various political, military and economic motives…” is awful.
While you look like a nut for choosing it, the following is true:
-Certain elements in the US government strongly believed some attack was coming iminently.
-The government significantly curtailed antiterrorism activities, reducing the chance to stop such an attack to near zero.
Had there been an option, “The government believed there was a high likelihood of an attack somewhat like the one that happened, but negligently refused to take adequate precautions”, I’m sure a lot of people would have chosen it instead of their “option 2″. While their option one is factually more like this sentiment, option 2 expresses the emotional aspect of it better. People were pissed off about how badly Bush denuded the country of its defenses against terrorism and option one just seems like a free pass.
July 31st, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Njorl: Please specify what “precautions” you would not have deemed provocative on 9/10/2001 or now. If this were coming, what should Obama do differently ?
July 31st, 2009 at 5:00 pm
It’s as hard for me to get inside the head of a Birther as it is an iguana or a cockatoo. It just seems so utterly other.
July 31st, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Most of them are over 60 and living in the southern states. With worries like theirs, they’ll probably be dropping like flies with heart attacks and strokes.
July 31st, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Re: On the basis of some remarks of Obama’s (”Jesus is a bridge between man and
Presidents aren’t bishops and you can’t parse their words for fine theological points. George W Bush once claimed that Jesus was the greatest philoopher in history, a line which would seem to identify him with the asorted Deists, Jews, Muslims and Hindus who accord Jesus status as a great teacher but not as God Incarnate. But I have to be fair even to Mr Bush and express my doubts that he was trying to say any such thing.
Also, Jesus, by dint of uniting Divine and Human natures in one person, is indeed a bridge between God and Man.
July 31st, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Yes, I too was very annoyed when G. W. Bush cited Jesus as the greatest philosopher in history. Jesus wasn’t a philosopher, and what He taught had little to do with making the world safe for pre-emptive war and the oil industry.
July 31st, 2009 at 8:35 pm
[...] . . because most of the crackers who live in Alabama think that government is the problem. This is the end result of radical [...]
August 1st, 2009 at 8:32 am
This wasn’t one of the more intuitive charts I’ve ever seen; I was able to grasp immediately enough that some thought Obama was a Christian, and some thought not, some thought he was a Muslim, and some thought not, and some thought he was a citizen, and some thought he was not, but it took me going back and forth to the original link, and reading the text, trying to figure out if it was measuring how many people thought Obama was a Dark Knight, or not. Or what.
Eventually, I got it. But not immediately. Just noting.
August 1st, 2009 at 1:29 pm
I like living in the South, but it can be so embarrassing. Pollsters need to start distinguishing between responses from rational people who live in cities, and everyone else.
August 5th, 2009 at 11:12 am
[...] Yglesias has a sweet graph created by Brendan Nyhan: [...]