Over at CT, a link to two polls – here and here. The killer finding is that the same sort of percentage of the US population, and the same sort of people, deny that Barack Obama is a US citizen *and* that the American and African continents were once part of the same landmass.
Specifically, an actual majority – well, a plurality – of Republicans disagree with plate tectonics. The crossbreaks are hilarious; the only groups of which this was true were Republicans and Southerners, but the most likely groups to get it right were blacks, Latinos, and Democrats, in that order, so those were almost certainly the same individuals.
So far, another stupid Americans story. But the differences between the groups can be summarised as follows:
- Less Republican groups had a small but real advantage in the percentage who voted yes.
- More Republican groups had a considerable lead in the percentage who voted no.
- More Republican groups had many fewer Don’t Knows.
I think the most important statement is number three. The Democratic- and fact-leaning groups, although they had significant numbers of people who got it wrong, were much more likely to say they weren’t sure than to choose No. Being unsure of the answer, they expressed doubt.
Republican-leaning groups weren’t just more likely not to know, but more likely to plump for an answer anyway. Fools, you could say, rushed in.
Now, I really don’t believe quite that many of them are ignorant of basic geology – I rather suspect that the question tripped a number of trigger words (Africa!) before getting to that point. Everyone thinks like that a lot of the time.
This is, of course, how operationalised post-modernism works – what matters is the theatre of action, jumping and yelling and trying to dominate the mental space, and all that determines which way you’re pointing is a small set of identity-defining talking points. Did you know Senator X is weak on fufferum? Did you know that?? But why aren’t you talking about his position on elefurt? That’s what I want to know! The base have probably internalised this to a considerable degree.
That does raise the possibility of getting things done by tailoring your message to fire their immune receptors. The classic example is adding the word “security” to whatever proposal you have. Similarly, the Decent Left project was based on giving a whole lot of ugly right-wing ideas the right biological markers to stimulate a certain kind of leftie.