Public Policy Polling, based in the US, asked a series of questions about various conspiracy theories,and one of those questions asked about the Antichrist. From that we learned that …
13% of voters think Barack Obama is the anti-Christ
Oh shit, that is truly scary, because it means that 13% of the US population are more or less self-certified complete and utter nutters. Oh wait, perhaps that percentage should be revised a bit, because we can also learn a few other things from this poll.
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4% believe shape-shifting reptilian people control our world by taking on human form and gaining power
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5% of respondents believe that Paul McCartney died and was secretly replaced in the Beatles in 1966
- 6% think Osama bin Laden is still alive
- 7% of voters think the moon landing was fake
- 14% believe in Bigfoot
- 15% believe that the pharmaceutical industry is in league with the medical industryto “invent” new diseases in order to makemoney
- 21% believe a UFO crashed at Roswell in 1947
- 28% of voters believe that a secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government, or New World Order
- 37% thought that global warming was a hoax
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44% of voters believe the Bush administration intentionally misled the public about weapons of mass destruction to promote the Iraq War (actually no, they were simply being stupid, Bush is not a smart man)
Worried yet? Well read on.
The Antichrist
Looking at all of the above we now begin to realize the following .
- There are folks who know that Moon landing denial is complete bullshit … ah but Obama is indeed the Antichrist
In fact, that 13% is the tip of the iceberg, because drill into the poll and you find what while 13% are actually sure that Obama is indeed the antichrist, there are another 13% who are not really sure and think that he just might be, so that leaves only 73% who correctly identify the antichrist assertion as bullshit. In other words, we can seriously doubt the sanity of 1 in 4.
Actually there is a political split to the above. The poll asked how people voted as well, so from that we can extrapolate the following:
Of those 13% that do indeed think that Obama is the antichrist …
- 22% are Republicans … paint me unsurprised
- 6% don’t remember who the hell they voted for at all … (which might indeed explain a lot)
- 5% actually voted for him … in other words they actually willingly and happily voted for the antichrist!! … WTF!!
So is Obama the antichrist? Oh come on now, universal healthcare for all … (oh the evil … [shudders] … yep, obviously far worse than Stalin and Hitler) … you are OK to work this out for yourself, right?
So what is really going on, can we trust these numbers (or is this just a media conspiracy)?
Don’t be worried about any of this, the problem here with these numbers is that the data sample is way too small, they only polled 1,247 people, and that is not a truly representative sample of the entire and truly diverse US population.
There are indeed nutters out there, so if these statistics are not a reliable measure of that, then what is actually going on? In fact, what the survey was really all about was exploring how voters’ political beliefs impacted upon their willingness to embrace conspiracy theories, for example …
when it comes to thinking global warming is a hoax some 58% of Republicans agreed and 77% of Democrats disagreed. While 20% of Republicans believed Obama is the antichrist heralding the End Times, only 13% of independents did and just 6% of Democrats.
“Even crazy conspiracy theories are subject to partisan polarization, especially when there are political overtones involved. But most Americans reject the wackier ideas out there about fake moon landings and shape-shifting lizards,“
What we do learn is that those that vote Republican do indeed appear to be far more prone to buying into utterly insane ideas, but my guess is that you already knew that.
Finally
Some media outlets will of course run with the raw stats as evidence of the actual percentages of craizeness; but as you now realize, that is not what was actually being measured. Then again, if you do indeed buy into these numbers as being meaningful, consider this; we can glean from the above that at least 1 in 4 are complete nuts, so if you take a good close look at your 3 best friends and find that they are all OK, then its you.