Here's a table showing the ratio of Romney to Obama supporters who believe in a particular conspiracy.
| Voted For | |||
| Conspiracy | Obama | Romney | Ratio |
| Believe Global Warming a Hoax? | 12 | 61 | 5.1 |
| Believe Obama is Anti-Christ | 5 | 22 | 4.4 |
| Believe in lizard people | 2 | 5 | 2.5 |
| Believe in New World Order | 16 | 38 | 2.4 |
| Believe Sadam was involved in 9/11 | 19 | 36 | 1.9 |
| Believe UFO Crashed at Roswell? | 16 | 27 | 1.7 |
| Believe govt spreads chemicals thru plane exhaust | 3 | 5 | 1.7 |
| Believe pharma and med invent new diseases to make $ | 11 | 17 | 1.5 |
| Believe govt controls minds thru TV | 12 | 18 | 1.5 |
| Believe in Bigfoot | 12 | 15 | 1.3 |
| Believe McCartney died and was replaced | 4 | 5 | 1.3 |
| Believe Vaccines Cause Autism | 19 | 22 | 1.2 |
| Believe in JFK conspiracy | 47 | 54 | 1.1 |
| Believe aliens exist | 28 | 28 | 1.0 |
| Believe govt adds fluoride for sinister reasons | 8 | 8 | 1.0 |
| Believe Moon Landing was Fake | 6 | 5 | 0.8 |
| Believe govt allowed 9/11 to happen | 13 | 8 | 0.6 |
| Believe CIA spread crack in inner cities | 17 | 10 | 0.6 |
| Believe Bush misled on WMDs in Iraq | 69 | 18 | 0.3 |
Voters come together on a belief in aliens and the government adding fluoride for sinister reasons.
They are sharply divided over whether global warming is a hoax and whether Bush misled on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. (Note that the question is not whether the science on global warming is dubious or incomplete: 61% of Romney supporters actually think global warming is a hoax that scientists are perpetuating at the expense of innocent oil companies, politicians, and talk radio personalities.) That seems predictable given politics.
It's less clear why Romney supporters would be about twice as likely to believe that a UFO crashed at Roswell or in lizard people.
The fact that Republicans are more likely to cozy up to a good conspiracy doesn't prove that the GOP platform is carefully crafted to appeal to the interests of average Americans while helping only a select few. Then again, if you could prove such a claim it wouldn't be much of a conspiracy, would it?
One thing that's hard to judge is whether people really believe what they're telling the pollsters, or whether they feel obliged to toe the company line.
ReplyDeleteThomas - I've wondered that same thing. But even so, wouldn't that be a constant across parties and topics? For whatever reason, people are more likely to believe in aliens than fluoride being used for sinister reasons.
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