But remember that time an anonymous Daily Kos commenter said Bush was like Hitler?
(Daniel Drezner via Steve M)
I still think there’s a good chance that at some point someone at Kaplan or Slate will get birther-curious in a contrarian counterintuitive way.
eric
You can’t deny that his ancestors came from Africa!!
Violet
19 plus 27 is 46. Doesn’t Mitt Romney have about 46% of the vote in polls right now? Pretty much proves 27% of Republicans are batshit crazy.
D0n Camillo
26% of Democrats have always believed he was born in another country? WTF?
eric
@D0n Camillo: Hawaii, at least according to Cokie Roberts.
taylormattd
Hasn’t that already happened? I’m positive it has already happened. I know they have at least gone down the whole “well he could have prevented this discussion if only he had . . . . . . . .” path.
Hill Dweller
63% of Republicans still think Iraq had WMD’s in 2003.
63% of Republicans believe Obama was foreign born. 15% of Republicans say they don’t know.
Yutsano
Well it is out there now DougJ. You can’t just ignore the fact it’s been stated! It must be reported on!
dedc79
This ties in nicely with the Gary Wills piece that I think you or someone else linked to recently. Anyone who votes for Romney isn’t just voting for his platform (if he ever settles on what it will be), they are enabling the GOP at large to do whatever the hell it wants.
Some friends of mine who work in finance continue to consider voting for Romney even though they disagree with the GOP on just about every social issue. They assume Romney doesn’t mean what he says about basically everything. I keep telling them, to no avail, that it’s not even just about Romney – it’s about the floodgates that would be opened if there was no Presidential check on Congress, it’s about the makeup of the Supreme Court, etc..
SteveM
@D0n Camillo: No — 26% (25.5%) of “all” respondents have always believed Obama was foreign-born. For Dems, it’s 5.3%.
beltane
@D0n Camillo: That 26% must represent those “Born Fighting” Appalachian Democrats we hear about.
MikeJ
@D0n Camillo: You misread. It’s 5.3% of Dems.
The Ancient Randonneur
According to that poll 50% of all Republicans are half mental.
Hill Dweller
Both sides!
JGabriel
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D0n Camillo:
Those are the West Virginian Democrats who voted for the guy in prison.
(Sorry, John Cole.)
.
Villago Delenda Est
Where the fuck is that asteroid? We need the motherfucker, NOW!
D0n Camillo
@SteveM: Whoops. Thanks for the correction.
MattF
I think The Donald has pretty much poisoned the well on Birtherism– even for Village Contrarians.
It’s interesting that some questions in the poll picked up a big D/R divide, and others didn’t. Note, particularly Q63: Do you believe that the following statement is true or not true? “Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the United States invaded in 2003.” For Dems, it’s 14.9/63.1/22.0, while for Repubs, it’s 62.9/17.5/19.6. Huge partisan difference.
trollhattan
@The Ancient Randonneur:
I mostly believe that.
amk
Let cut to the chase and cut all the crap.
The majority of the whiteys from both parties can’t handle the reality of a very smart black man in the white house.
Comrade Dread
But it’s not racist, because I’m sure they have a black friend.
smintheus
The thing is, it took a lot of propaganda over a long period to spread the birther nonsense. There was obviously some time before they’d heard of birtherism, when they had no reason to think dumb thoughts about where Obama was born. So these Republican whackadoodles can’t even remember, or report honestly, what they’ve believed. I think it’s related to their apparent conviction that each of them is utterly impervious to propaganda; they just happen to be repeating exactly what all the other whackadoodles are repeating…all of whom came to their opinions sincerely and independently of each other.
lacp
Poland. You forgot Poland.
Omnes Omnibus
@amk: How do you figure that?
quannlace
Don’t forget, there are still plenty of morons out there that think Hawaii and New Mexico aren’t part of the United States.
MikeJ
@lacp: The Czech Republic and Portugal have not forgotten Poland. Eagerly awaiting today’s game from Warsaw.
ant
I like turtles!
Villago Delenda Est
As I’ve pointed out before, an unfair comparison.
Hitler was a decorated, wounded in combat war veteran.
TooManyJens
I see that Q7, 53.3% of Republican respondents reject “Increases in taxes on higher-income Americans”, “Major cuts in military spending”, “Major cuts in Social Security”, and “Major cuts in Medicare” as ways of reducing the deficit. Which means that a) they have no idea what their chosen party has planned for Medicare and b) they have no idea what the big-ticket items in the budget are. Is the deficit reduction supposed to come from taxes on people who can’t afford them and cuts in foreign aid and NPR?
I guess there’s an alternative explanation, which is that 53% of Republicans actually aren’t deficit hawks, but then maybe they should stop voting for the party that’s using the deficit as an excuse to cut things they don’t want cut.
amk
@Omnes Omnibus: The 2010 shellacking and the subsequent mini-me polls. 2008 was an aberration, imo.
TooManyJens
I also can’t help noticing how much more similar the responses are between Democrats and Independents than between Republicans and Independents.
PurpleGirl
@TooManyJens: Yes, many people have believed for years that if we cut all discretionary items — NPR, PBS, Parks, National Endowment for the Arts, etc. — then, presto change-o, we’d save so much money, you wouldn’t believe it.
Don’t confuse them with the fact that all that stuff is, like what, 1 or 2% (or some stupidly small amount) of spending…
TenguPhule
We need to have suicide booths that ask this question. Those who fail it need to be incinerated immediately on the grounds their genetic material is too stupid to live and needs to be chlorinated from the gene pool.
schrodinger's cat
@Violet: I think the 19% is probably a subset of the 27%, so you may be double counting the crazies.
OT: Yesterday I was bored and was going through some fashion blogs for an outfit inspiration and happened along a blog of a woman, who home schools her children, believes that the bible is literally true, lives in California and had gone to India to evangelize because apparently India has the most people who haven’t heard of the gospel. The way she spoke of the Indian people she encountered was so condescending, I thought I had stepped into a time machine and was transported about a century earlier. I bet she is voting for Romney.
/shudders.
Bizono
There is a word for a person who “always believed that President Obama was born in another country.” That word isn’t conservative, independent, republican, etc.
That word is “asshole.”
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
And have you heard the anti-birther birther rumor: Obama was born in the US, but lied about being born in Kenya to get into college.
schrodinger's cat
What percentage of the population do the Republicans represent?
schrodinger's cat
@amk: You are painting with an overly broad brush here. If you what you said was true Obama would not have been elected at all.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): That is a keeper
amk
@schrodinger’s cat: As I said, 2008 was an aberration. Subsequent polls, msm narratives, whiny left talking points (regardless of his delivery on progressive issues) etc. prove it, broad brush or not.
schrodinger's cat
@amk: Well, you have to wait until November to test your theory. A data set of two points is not enough to make generalizations. Also Obama was not on the ballot in 2010.
ETA: Obama also won the Democratic primary against Hillary Clinton, who was the overwhelming favorite to win the nomination (according to media, at least).
fasteddie9318
This birther nonsense is distracting us all from the real question, which is whether or not Obama is a Reptilian.
Omnes Omnibus
@amk: You have stats to support the idea that white Democrats don’t support the Pres? I doubt it.
taylormattd
@schrodinger’s cat: It’s not overly broad. Everyone here agrees that a large percentage of republicans are complete racists and can’t abide the black man in the white house.
The fact of the matter is that it’s also true of some democrats. Some of them are the west virginia and kentucky hillbillies. Some are the hillary dead-ender types. They all pretend their opposition has nothing to do with race, of course. But for some magical reason, they have completely different standards for BHO and their (white) democratic heroes.
amk is right, imo.
Chad
@D0n Camillo: PUMA’s?
taylormattd
@Omnes Omnibus: Not sure what you mean by “don’t support the president.”
It’s fairly clear that support for Obama among white democrats is lower than support for Obama among non-white democrats.
Chad
@eric: they can’t deny that theirs did too
Chad
@eric: they can’t deny that theirs did too
schrodinger's cat
@taylormattd: There are a significant number of people for whom Obama’s race is a problem, whether they are in a majority as amk is asserting is not all that clear.
Elie
@amk:
THIS – a thousand times. He is an alien martian who eats babies and vomits toads and snakes — “not one of us”…
Can we stop checking this stuff, now? Does anyone else really need to be convinced anymore? Seriously. Obama has taken on mythologic stature, sprouting webbed wings and talons instead of feet… he is whitey’s worst nightmare..swirling into their daytime and ongoing psychosis.
pk
I know someone who voted for Pat Toomy. When I told her some of the things he had said and planned to do, she replied “he’s not really going to do any of that, he’s just saying it”. I don’t know what is the point of arguing after that. At this point I think our society has reached a stage where a significant number of people believe what they choose to believe. No evidence to the contrary will change their minds. There is no cure for that.
amk
@Omnes Omnibus: I call the poll results since 2008 stat enough. And all the other points I mentioned are other pointers. Tell me when the dem white pols or the white voters had the back of him once was elected unconditionally. If he wins in 2012, it will be mostly due to non-whites voting for him overwhelmingly with a minority of white votes.
Amir Khalid
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
I’ve heard this one, but I don’t understand it. Exactly what sort of affirmative-action admission quota would Obama have got into by claiming he was born outside the USA? One that favored US citizens born abroad?
TooManyJens
@amk: Yes, but not with a minority of the votes of white Democrats. There absolutely are some white Democrats who can’t deal with Obama being president — what’s going on in West Virginia makes that obvious — but his approval rating is still in the mid-80s among Democrats. Non-whites don’t make up 84% of the Democratic Party.
Omnes Omnibus
@taylormattd: My argument is with the statement that the majority of whiteys from both parties can’t handle the reality of a black man in the White House. I haven’t seen the evidence that supports the assertion that the majority of white Dems can’t deal with Obama being Pres. The statement seems facially absurd.
The Moar You Know
@MattF: It’s true. That fat fucking clown destroys everything he touches. I’d bet a hundred bucks that he lives in the back of a warehouse somewhere and has about sixty-five dollars to his name, and the collections guy keeps calling and threatening to repossess his hair.
Hair Trump’s and Orly Taitz’s respective clown shows of failure have put birferism off limits for the Serious People. They really want a shot at it – that’s obvious – but they just can’t figure out a way to get there that doesn’t put them in the clown car.
Even they know that you DO NOT WANT to be in the clown car.
Omnes Omnibus
@amk: You seem to be conflating things. I know that a majority of white voters will vote against Obama. This is because the GOP is almost all white. It does not follow that the majority of white Democrats have any problem with Obama. It is that implication that I find problematic.
amk
@Omnes Omnibus: You seem to want some hit & miss opinion polls from gallup and pew when there are real polls with real results in 2010 and after that prove my point.
schrodinger's cat
@amk: What the hell are you talking about, Obama was not on the ballot in 2010 how could anyone, white or not have voted against him in 2010.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Amir Khalid: The purpose of this is to prove that he’s not smart, that the only way he got into college was through affirmative action, that his life has been gotten through help from others rather than his intelligence. And his getting help meant some white kid was kept out of school, because there was obviously a smarter white kid.
amk
@schrodinger’s cat: If you don’t see 2010 votes as anti-obama (for whatever reasons), then can you explain the shellacking ? Then there is WI recall. What exactly was the reason that over 200 K 2008 obama votes went missing last month, especially when the folks were voting against their own interest ?
Let’s see how the 2012 turns out whether I am wrong (I so wish so) or right ?
Brachiator
@smintheus:
I don’t know. Like most other fear based conspiracy theories, it seemed to start quickly and take hold among those who wanted to believe.
I recall hearing it on the late night space alien talk radio program, thought it nuts, and was surprised to see how soon it spread.
Not much propaganda was needed to sustain it. The main thing that the GOP did was refuse to treat it like the lie that it was, and to let it fester among their supporters for the obvious political gain it bought them. They’ve been running with it ever since.
@Amir Khalid:
What happens here is that people look for new ways to keep old lies alive. So, with confused pseudo-logic, the conspiracy hounds create a myth of Obama somehow finding some special college scholarhip program looking for Stealth Muslim Kenyans Aspiring to Become President in 2008.
TooManyJens
@amk: But you’re claiming that the anti-Obama votes in 2010 were coming from the majority of whites in both parties. Would it be asking too much for a reason to believe that? There were three main factors at work in 2010, as I see it. One, the usual midterm losses for an incumbent president. Two, how absolutely insanely fired up the Republicans were to get rid of the people who had voted for health care reform, and to register their general disapproval of Obama as well. Three, the lower turnout of the Democratic electorate relative to Republicans — but unfortunately that’s pretty normal, as Democrats usually have more struggle to turn out their voters for various reasons. 2008 was unusual in that regard. Was there unusually low turnout for white Democrats in particular? If so, was it low enough to support the claim that the majority of white Democrats can’t handle having a black president? I think the answer is no to both questions. If you have numbers to show otherwise, by all means, post them. Just continuing to say “it’s obvious” doesn’t make a claim true.
I don’t think WI 2012 had anything to do with Obama to any significant extent. There are forces much closer to home that explain that outcome.
Omnes Omnibus
@TooManyJens: A significant number of people who voted for Walker said they plan to vote for Obama.
Literalreddy
Actually it is worse. There are 4.3% of Dems and 8% of Repubs who changed their minds TO the opinion that BHO was born in another country.
So combined there are almost 10% of Dems and 64% of Repubs who believe that BHO was born in another country. So, there is slightly over 30% of the entire poll that believes that BHO was born in another country.
Can I get into the new Steve Carrel film because we need that asteroid more than the film does?
danimal
The real scandal: I don’t think anyone is polling on the all-important question of whether RMoney is a unicorn.
Media bias fail.
Mnemosyne
@amk:
As far as I’ve seen, the shellacking had a whole lot more to do with white independents turning against Obama than white Democrats. Couple that with the Democrats’ frequent turnout problem in midterm elections and you get a pretty ugly result.
There was also an unexpected (though relatively small numerically) upsurge in people voting who had not voted at all in 2008 — that’s where your true anti-Obama voters were.
Chad
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): there’s always a smarter white kid
pseudonymous in nc
I think the most telling number is the top row: the former birfers who say they’ve been persuaded otherwise. That points to how it’s a shibboleth, a tenet, unmoored from any kind of falsifiability: it’s a belief that you adopt in order to be part of the club.
Yoki
Years ago I met a Hawaiian who was visiting Atlanta, GA. I asked him how he was enjoying his time in the continental 48 and he thanked me. He said people were constantly asking him how he liked America. Is it possible that shocking numbers of Americans don’t understand that Hawaii is part of the United States? Given the sorry state of our education system and the general ignorance, if not full-blown idiocy, of the American populace, I’d say it’s entirely possible.
dr. luba
@Comrade Dread:
I heard that the standard for “not racist” is now TWO black friends.
schrodinger's cat
@Yoki: I believe it is quite possible. I once went to a conference in Atlanta, back when I lived in Maine, and I got asked by a few people if it was a part of Canada.
Svensker
@schrodinger’s cat:
I met a girl in the Army back in the 70s who was from Boston. She thought Seattle was just outside of Washington, D.C. You know, because it’s in Washington?
Pangloss
I have always believed that John McCain and Mitt Romney’s father were born in another country.
Canuckistani Tom
@Yoki:
Thirded. I once met a woman in Wapakoneta, Ohio, who had never heard of Canada and thought that Detroit was on the Atlantic ocean
ETA: OK, Fourthed.
Omnes Omnibus
@Pangloss: Birther!
schrodinger's cat
@Pangloss: Or we can start rumors about Mitt having multiple wives.
Yutsano
@schrodinger’s cat: It would be irresponsible not to speculate. What else does he need all those houses for? I’M JUST SAYIN’!!
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Omnes Omnibus:
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It also ignores the context that Dems haven’t really closed ranks and stood solidly behind a Democratic President since WW2 ended, with the exception of that brief interval in late 1963 and 64 when LBJ was kicking ass and taking names. Other than that, Dem disunity, factional infighting and one faction or another of the party looking for a chance to stick a shiv in the current president is pretty much a permanent fixture in the political landscape. Sure Obama has a chunk of the party that don’t really support him, and hardly anybody in the party leadership will go to the wall on his behalf, but is it really any worse than what Truman, JFK, LBJ circa 1965-8, Carter or Clinton had to put up with?
schrodinger's cat
@Yutsano: One wife per house I think. At least that’s how it was in Big Love. Does he have any FLDS relatives? I wonder….
Yutsano
@schrodinger’s cat: Oh I dunno. His grandfather didn’t flee to Mexico alone. And his father was born there, odds are quite high that he has half-uncles and aunts still living a true Mormon lifestyle. The only story I’ve heard is George came back alone. One must indeed wonder…
ericblair
@Canuckistani Tom:
My dad used to work in Saskatchewan. Told some other American guy that it was north of North Dakota. Got laughed at and asked who he was trying to fool; ain’t nothin’ north of North Dakota!