Bomb-Throwing Poll of the Day
Let it be said again that Dailykos is an abjectly partisan organization, but the polls it commissions from Research 2000 are on the level. One can argue for an inclusion bias—that is, the mere fact of asking a question biases respondents, which can be mitigated (or exacerbated) by wording—or identification bias—it might be that when somebody identifies as a Republican, they are really Republican, whereas moderates or people like me might identify as something else, though getting a sort of self-selected sample of the real hardcore. But the methodology is sound and the poll is as scientific as any out there. The results, in other words, are valid.
For awhile Kos has been including weird questions in his polls the intent of which is to gauge (or “prove”) that Republicans are nuts. So, in Texas, he included a question about whether Texas Republicans want to secede from the United States, and found a surprisingly robust number who thought just that. Or, in South Carolina, that “Barack Obama was born in the United States” was actually the minority opinion among the GOP (a result that PPP found so jarring that they decided to poll the question as well to verify the veracity of the R2000 poll—and to their shock found the same result, if anything to an even more significant degree).
Well, Dailykos/Research 2000 have now done away with just throwing a question or two into an otherwise regular poll, and have instead just decided to find 2000 Republicans and throw a bunch of crazy shiat at them to see what the think.
The full poll has not yet been released, but the preliminary results aren’t pretty.
• 39% of Republicans want President Obama to be impeached.
• 63% think Obama is a socialist.
• Only 42% believe Obama was born in the United States.
• 21% think ACORN stole the 2008 election — that is, that Obama didn’t actually win it, and isn’t legitimately the president, with 55% saying they are “not sure.”
• 53% think Sarah Palin is more qualified than Obama to be president.
• 23% want to secede from the United States.
• 73% think gay people should not be allowed to teach in public schools.
• 31% want contraception to be outlawed.
Now, one by one.
The impeach question—meh, I’m not sure that’s not just a partisan effect. I would reckon that roughly a fourth of the country is generally always in favor of impeaching whatever President is currently sitting. Add to that an increased impression that “impeach” is synonymous with “remove from office just because I don’t like him”, and that number is probably just going to keep going up. In other words, I think it’s roughly akin to “very strongly disapprove of” numbers and is not in itself indicative of much save vehemence of opinon.
The socialist question still strikes me as more loose definitions than conspiracy theory. I think the case that Obama is a socialist by definition, or at least has socialistic tendencies, is not really accurate or helpful but not inherently insane. Again, a only slightly more generous reading of this result would be “a majority of Republicans think Obama is a committed redistributionist”, which is both more or less true but not very provocative (indeed, it would be true of most Democrats and Republicans).
The Obama being born in the United States thing is as advertised. Birtherism is mainstream in the Republican party.
The ACORN question—21% doesn’t even raise an eyebrow with me on questions like these, because you would be AMAZED what your fellow man believes. Angels, ghosts, UFO abductions, bigfoot, Trutherism, etc.—all that polls in this range. Now, the marquee finding here are the 55% who refuse to go on record saying ACORN did not steal the 2008 election. Kos will prefer the implication that that means 76% of Republicans are inclined to think ACORN might have stole the election, but it could just as well mean that they don’t mind that that meme is out there and so don’t feel any desire to repel it. In other words, a sort of placation non-answer, not a proactive implication. That’s still an awfully high number though.
The Palin question—well, I think it’s wrong (she didn’t even complete her one term as Governor), but again, this one is definitional. Really, Obama wasn’t particularly more qualified in 2008 than Palin is now, depending on what value you place on what. Again, I think he was, but different people will have different thresholds, and the wording here matters (directly comparing the two). My guess is the standalone results—that a lot of Republicans think Obama was not qualified, and probably a lot of them don’t think Palin is qualified now (though many do)—isn’t that shocking.
The secession question. Again, doesn’t raise an eyebrow. 23% is a pretty small slice, and who knows what that means. Hell, I have some friends who will argue that this or that state should secede, and they aren’t crazy. Often they’re half-joking or playing devil’s advocate or just making a point.
31% want contraception to be outlawed. Eh, that one does register on my crazy meter, but not by much. It’s a small number.
Really, the only result that out-and-out shocked me was:
• 73% think gay people should not be allowed to teach in public schools.
I’ll have to see the exact wording, and I can minimized a few points off that by saying that the wording of the question—frontloading “gay” and then adding in the context of schools, certainly primes people a certain way—unconsciously biases the results. My guess would be that the result would be radically different if the question were, say, “There is a public school teacher in Omaha who is gay. Should he be fired?” or “A qualified applicant for a job opening as a science teacher in a public high school also mentions that he lives with a same-sex partner. Should that disqualify him from the job?” would come out very very differently, perhaps not even in the majority.
But still, while the question may prime people a certain way, that’s a somewhat weak effect, particularly when the meaning of the question is not unclear. The respondents, in other words, probably understood the meaning and implication of the question when they answered. And there’s no way to look at 73% thinking gay people should not be allowed to teach in public schools and not be a little amazed.
Ah, while I was writing this post, the poll was posted on Dailykos.
Even more surprising to me are the issues results. Only 7% think gay people should be allowed to marry? 91% favor the death penalty? Those are pretty severe.
Anyway, the wording of all of these questions combined makes me wonder about a priming effect. So I’m not sure this poll is as “valid” as it could be. But I can’t outright dismiss it.
Comment by Brad — 2/2/2010 @ 1:37 pm
I’m curious why 39% of republicans think Obama should be impeached. For what, exactly? In the minds of these people, is simply not agreeing with someone an impeachable offense? What unlawful activity is Obama accused of? I’m not aware of anything…
Comment by Dingle — 2/2/2010 @ 5:18 pm
I think this one is pretty telling, hard to expect rational answers from a group that is wholly incapable of critical thinking:
Should public school students be taught that the book of Genesis in the Bible explains how God created the world?
Yes: 77 No: 15 Not sure: 8
Also, ~35% believe contraceptives should be outlawed, and the birth control pill is abortion. 51% believe sex ed should not be taught in schools. Yet 76% believe abortion is murder, 16% not sure. Talk about counter-productive views.
I was thinking the other day about conservative views and how they almost always take the more negative path. I’m not talking about things like fiscal responsibility, which I think is about the only good republican talking point (that they like to preach but completely fail to practice), but things like social issues and environment.
Gay rights, wars, abusing prisoners, capital punishment, limiting pollution, green energy, war on drugs, immigration, assault weapons, shooting wolves from helicopters, etc the conservative stance is almost always the negative one. Strip rights, kill prisoners, ban science, pollute the planet, kill kill kill. The only issue where I could see an argument for the right is on abortion, where the liberals want to kill babies and the conservatives want them to live. But they even botch that one up with their illogical stances on birth control and sex ed, and of course they want nothing to do with helping those single mothers or their babies, most of whom will grow up in poverty and further burdon the social programs the right love to hate.
Is there any other civilized country where one side takes such extreme, counter-productive stances on social issues? Or is our right on par with Iran and Pakistan?
Comment by Dingle — 2/2/2010 @ 5:41 pm
Again though, it’s all in how you interpret that question. If it’s a matter of exposing students at some point to the fact that yes, indeed, many people do believe that as a contrary viewpoint, I’d answer “yes” to that question. Heck, if I had my druthers students wouldn’t be able to get out of high school without a working knowledge of the the Old Testament at least. I think the way kos meant it is “Instead of teaching science, teach the Bible as the source of all creation”, but that’s not how I necessarily would have taken that question.
On the rest: while it’s hard for me, personally, to defend any of those views you mention specifically, on most of that at least I don’t think the counter-position is flatly insane. Many of them are perfectly rational and even good faith disagreements (even if very rarely so in practice). I’d like to say that a poll like this of mainstream Democrats would be equally as “shocking”, though I don’t think that would be entirely true, at least on the social spectrum. But still, people believe some dumb shit, by and large, and that’s certainly not specific to Republicans.
But yeah, that’s my half-hearted attempt at a defense.
Comment by Brad — 2/2/2010 @ 6:05 pm
I wasn’t necessarily saying all conservative stances are crazy or illogical, just that it struck me that they almost always go the more negative direction. Take hunting, for example. I have no problems with hunting, I think it’s a right and I have partaken a few times myself, but the typical conservative opinion would be in favor killing animals, and the typical liberal opiniion would be for saving animals. So i’m not saying that that is a crazy stance, just that it’s the more negative one. It was just a mind game I played trying to think of issues where the conservative viewpoint was the more positive.
Comment by Dingle — 2/2/2010 @ 7:07 pm
Be careful Dingle. I think your own perspective is skewing the of positive and negative.
Consider capital punishment. Your retort is supporters want to ‘kill prisoners’. Supporters of the death penalty, might argue they they want to ‘permanently protect society from dangerous scum’ or ‘exact justice for heinous actions’. Both of those are a more positive way of framing their views. It’s similarly possible to choose different more negative words to describe the position of people against the death penalty.
Consider the words ‘pro-choice’ and ‘pro-life’. Both are positive! Yay choice…oh wait…that the same as anti-life. Or yay life…that’s the same as anti-choice. Blast.
I get where you’re coming from and agree with most of your listed examples but I just want you to be careful trying to categorize one set of beliefs as generally negative or generally positive. Phrasing can morph almost any idea into a positive or negative one.
Comment by Cameron — 2/2/2010 @ 7:27 pm
How about conservative and liberal positions regarding the general efficacy of government at ameliorating social problems?
Or of the government’s ability to regulate markets and political speech without skewing things towards the principal supporters of the ruling party?
Or of the general desirability of trade tariffs?
The United States federal government does not exercise authority over whether Genesis will be taught in the public schools, over whether contraceptives will be legal, or over whether women will be permitted to have abortions. In the areas where the government DOES exercise authority, the conservative position has more empirical validity than the liberal position. A whole lot more, in fact.
Comment by Rojas — 2/2/2010 @ 10:23 pm
I’ll add this: it seems to be the standard liberal position that the conservatives throw out meaningless cultural issues in order to cloud debate over the central economic decisions that really matter, and that voters should consider first.
If that is the case, then why would supporters of the liberal cause spend all this time howling about conservative unreason on these irrelevant cultural issues?
Or, as Thomas Frank would say: What’s The Matter With Dingle?
Comment by Rojas — 2/2/2010 @ 10:25 pm
But the first sentence is a false assumption! It implies that we are only talking about federal government. I am reasonably well informed that Republicans vote at all levels of government, from the local to the federal, that a portion of the judiciary are elected, and that republicans, when in power, get to appoint judges. You can’t just wave away all the issues as where conservatives and their party of choice are wingnut crazy, because conservatives and republicans own those opinions, and have made them centerpieces of elections and rallies.
Comment by Jack — 2/4/2010 @ 1:16 pm
Jack, in how many jurisdictions is there currently a serious effort afoot to legally restrict contraception?
If these issues are “the centerpieces of elections and rallies”, how can it be that we’re shocked by polls that Republicans actually believe them?
If you seek irrational or “negative” sentiment in public policy, consider starting with already implemented public policies which produce no return on trillion-dollar investments–the wars on drugs and poverty, for instance, or long-term middle-class entitlements.
Comment by Rojas — 2/4/2010 @ 5:27 pm
Well of course you pick the one example in the wide ranging, liberty strangling social conservative platform that has the least traction, and yet there are plenty of examples of it: there are numerous attempts to make it illegal to fire an employee who refuses to sell contraceptives, or to eliminate programs that distribute free condoms, or to restrict and tighten access to teens. For abortion, there is a never ending attempt to set up roadblocks, notificaiton requirements, mandatory counseling, mandatory viewing of a sonogram, etc. There is the same unending and rampant attacks on secular teaching in schools. And yet you dismiss these social conservative actions casually and out of hand.
As to the second sentence, I am not in disagreement. I am not suprised, just disappointed and resolved to fight the fuckers.
And the last paragraph? No argument at all. It is your prior post, in which you effectively dismissed the social conservative movement as not particularly relavent to conservatism or the GOP, that struck me as absurd.
Comment by Jack — 2/4/2010 @ 8:34 pm
I mean come on, look at the freaking poll! 72% think gays should be bared from teaching in schools. Sarah fucking Palin is more qualified, and not based on what we new last year, but with the benefit of all that has happened since, with her idiotic blathering available for all to hear, and they still say this? ACORN stoll the election? The new conservative base is consumed with batshit nonsense, and I do not see an equivalent, wide spread, consuming condition on the liberal side. Not even close.
And your implication that the conservative movement does NOT believe that government can ameliorate social problems? They absolutely do, its called legislating morality, and it is a key plank in the platform.
Comment by Jack — 2/4/2010 @ 8:41 pm