If you still has any doubts that the Republican Party has managed to corral most racists and nut-jobs into joining their party, then the results of this Rasmussen Poll should remove that doubt. The survey was taken on July 16th and 17th of a random national sample of 1,000 adults, and has a margin of error of 3 points.
It shows that more Republicans believe the president was not born in the United States than believe he was -- a plurality of 41% (and another 21% say they are not sure). Only 38% are honest enough to admit the truth. And they cling to this ridiculous belief in spite of these facts:
* The president has been elected to that office twice by the American public.
* The president has provided both short and long forms of his official birth certificate.
* Hawaiian authorities, from the governor on down to local officials, have verified that the president was born in their state.
* Both newspaper and hospital accounts from that time verify his birth in Hawaii.
* The president has not been impeached by Congress (even though the GOP-controlled House hates the president and would have loved to have a justifiable reason to impeach him).
There is only one reason to maintain this ridiculous belief at this time -- irrational racist hatred. And that seems to be something the Republican Party has in abundance.
Actually, it's not as bad as you think. The poll compares the birther nutty dream with other nutty ideas, like the notion that space aliens crashed in Rosewell NM, and despite five or six years of birther sites plugging away at their stupidity FEWER Americans believe that Obama was born in a foreign country or doubt his birth in the USA than those who think that space aliens crashed in Rosewell NM or do not know.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, there is no control question to the "Obama born in a foreign country" question. Supposing that the same survey had asked whether the person believed that Mitt Romney was born in a foreign country--with the same three possibilities: Yes/Don't Know/No.
Well, SOME percentage would probably have said that they thought that Mitt Romney was born in a foreign country or did not know.
So one could say that the real percentage of people who think that Obama was born in a foreign country or do not know would be the difference between those who said so for Obama and those that said so for Mitt Romney. But there is no such control.
After all, if you asked "was the governor of your state born in a foreign country?" it is inevitable that there will always be some percentage of people who answer yes and some percentage that say that they do not know-----so that is kind of the background noise to the situation.
So, as I say, it's not as bad as it seems. But, of course, birthers HOPE that the percentage is significant, and they claim that it is, but it isn't.
BTW, 40% of Americans said that they thought that Obama was born in a foreign country or did not know, and 43% of Americans thought that space aliens had crashed in Rosewell, NM, or did not know.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/lifestyle/general_lifestyle/july_2014/have_we_got_a_conspiracy_for_you_9_11_jfk_obama_s_citizenship
It was 41% of REPUBLICANS, that believed the president was born in a foreign country. The percentage among all Americans was much lower (and that is the percentage of nuts you are referring to). Personally I think the much higher percentage among Republicans demonstrates the significant amount of racist hatred existing in that party.
ReplyDelete