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Large Portion Of GOP Thinks Obama Is Racist, Socialist, Non-U.S. Citizen: Poll
A new poll of more than 2,000 self-identified Republican voters illustrates the incredible paranoia enveloping the party and the intense pressure drawing lawmakers further and further away from political moderation.
The numbers speak for themselves -- a large portion of GOP voters think that President Obama is racist, socialist or a non-US citizen -- though, when considering them, it is important to note that a disproportionate percentage of respondents are from GOP strongholds in the South (42 percent) as opposed to the Northeast (11 percent). Also note that this is a poll of self-identified Republicans, which means that independent Tea Party types are not included. The numbers speak for themselves -- a large portion of GOP voters
think that President Obama is racist, socialist or a non-US citizen --
though, when considering them, it is important to note that a
disproportionate percentage of respondents are from GOP strongholds in
the South (42 percent) as opposed to the Northeast (11 percent). Also
note that this is a poll of self-identified Republicans, which means
that independent Tea Party types are not included.
Nevertheless here are some of the standout figures as provided by Daily Kos/Research 2000:
- 39 percent of Republicans believe Obama should be impeached, 29 percent are not sure, 32 percent said he should not be voted out of office.
- 36 percent of Republicans believe Obama was not born in the United States, 22 percent are not sure, 42 percent think he is a natural citizen.
- 31 percent of Republicans believe Obama is a "Racist who hates White people" -- the description once adopted by Fox News's Glenn Beck. 33 percent were not sure, and 36 percent said he was not a racist.
- 63 percent of Republicans think Obama is a socialist, 16 percent are not sure, 21 percent say he is not
- 24 percent of Republicans believe Obama wants "the terrorists to win," 33 percent aren't sure, 43 percent said he did not want the terrorist to win.
- 21 percent of Republicans believe ACORN stole the 2008 election, 55 percent are not sure, 24 percent said the community organizing group did not steal the election.
- 23 percent of Republicans believe that their state should secede from the United States, 19 percent aren't sure, 58 percent said no.
- 53 percent of Republicans said they believe Sarah Palin is more qualified to be president than Obama.
During his appearance at the House Republican retreat last Friday, Obama explained that it was hard to forge bipartisan consensus when lawmakers were trashing his health care bill as a "Bolshevik plot". These poll numbers show that the gulf preventing bipartisan consensus extends well beyond health care. How does a Republican lawmaker explain to his or her die-hard base that it is important to work on legislation with a racist, socialist president who is illegally holding office only because of the help of ACORN?
"This is why it's becoming impossible for elected Republicans to work with Democrats to improve our country," said Markos Moulitsas, founder and publisher of Daily Kos. "They are a party beholden to conspiracy theorists who don't even believe Obama was born in the United States, and already want to impeach him despite a glaring lack of scandal or wrongdoing. They think Obama is racist against white people and the second coming of Lenin. And if any of them stray and decide to do the right thing and try to work in a bipartisan fashion, they suffer primaries and attacks. Given what their base demands -- and this poll illustrates them perfectly -- it's no wonder the GOP is the party of no."
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96 Comments so far
Show AllMr. Obama's lying, cheating, and deceiving are but a pattern indicating that his character is questionable.
His having better things to do, seems like you want to distract from the central question of his background. The question is "who is he?"
Before the election, he said he would filibuster the FISA bill. He voted for it. He said he would take all USA military forces out of Iraq. Now he says only "combat troops" will go which is a distinction without difference. He said all would have Single Payer health coverage during the campaign, now we have no change, Same old Shit.
His lying, and deceiving is on main issues of his campaign. The banking bailout and lack of Consummer Protection are again examples of lying and deceit.
You just don't want to admit he is a lying, cheating, deceiving manipulative politician.
It is my opinion that he is a disaster for our former republican government, but an angel for the MIC.
It is hard for one to admit a mistake; but real growth never happens without one reflecting upon their own flaws.
DCH February 3rd, 2010 11:20 am -- Thanks for your thoughtful response. Obama's "lies" about policy matters, his broken promises, are in a different category from lying on a resume. For better or worse, nearly all elected officials get away with the former. If John Edwards had been elected, we'd be saying the same about him. But he would have been called on his lies about Hunter. Bill Clinton got in trouble for similar deceptions about Monica Lewinsky and was impeached by the House (although acquitted by the Senate).
That being said, I think Obama's critics, now including many progressives and liberals, have met their burden with regard to the policy matters you raise. The conservatives haven't met theirs on the resume questions.
You are correct. The burden of proof is upon those making the claim. However, the proof is being blocked by the one against whom the accusation is being made.
One cannot get the documents. They are held in secret.
It would be such a simple thing to open all the records. All Presidential candidate sense Jack F. Kennedy have done just that to remove all questions of their fitness and qualifications.
Mr. Obama hides. Well, what is he hiding?
You must admit, Mr. Obama has shown himself to being a deceiver and liar. So questioning him is not only reasonable, but an act of responsible citizenship.
We don't know who this guy really is, do we?
I'd like to see studies of what people in other countries believe. I don't think we have a monopoly on paranoia and stupidity.
The political dementia described by the article is the seedbed of the mass basis of American fascism. Add the Tea Party crowd, as Sarah Palin is trying to do, and it becomes evident that not only can it happen here; it is now happening here. Our real rulers (the corporate capitalist/imperialist elite) regard the rightist ferment as fodder to co-opt for ruling-class ends; but they are playing with the most insane type of fire. (The German bourgeoisie opted for Hitler, and look what that got them.)
the problem with Obama's visit with the House Republicans was that he was trying to---correctly---show how they're not that far apart.
Sad, really, that a supposedly change president would suck up to people who are status quo.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this poll.
Do these people--the ones who accuse Obama of being racist--not realize that his mother was a white woman fromn Kansas?
As I post, I'm sitting next to a black man. Racially, I (a white man) have as much in common with Obama as my neighbor, and so do all those white Republican, tea-bagging race-baiters.
Culturally, I have MORE in common with the president, who was raised primarily by his white grandmother.
I suspect that his mixed racial heritage is the real source of the problem these race-baiters have with Obama ... Jim Crow is alive and well on the Republican Right.
"Better dead than red"
Our President has quite enough faults of his own without others being invented.
I can't follow you. One of us should go to bed.
The people in the rural community where I live are good neighbors when you need help. They deserve respect and patience.
Their ignorance and levels of superstition are genuinely frightening. I never, ever argue with them when they offer such opinions as are mentioned in the article.
No matter how friendly they seem I am afraid of them.
I live in a similar community and I share your concerns.
The machine of modern commerce hurtles onward- corrupting, defiling, devouring or destroying anything in its path. It is unstoppable. The best we can hope for is to slow it down and steer it in a less destructive direction.
Problem: The MSM serves the profit machine and modern man is therefore swimming in propaganda. It doesn't even have to be the lies about Obama; it is enough to be distracted by the flickering image of the moment or transfixed by the next must-have object.
I suppose part of the solution to the problem is that many are finding themselves jobless or underemployed- too swamped with bills, debt and other pressures to think of much other than who's to blame. We have to start creating opportunities to communicate, understand, organize, mobilize and excercise our power as citizens. We can't let the anger be used to further the ends of the power elite.
Well now I think we all knew that a large portion of the GOP, if not all of them, are mentally, spiritually, emotionally, ethically and morally challenged and should be institutionalized for their own safety and the safety of their fellow Americans.
If most of Congress (especially the DLC "leaders") could find not a reason to impeach, or indict, George W. Bush (he didn't have a sexual affair ... that we know of, but then I doubt he's even had sex with Laura for 20 years), then there _certainly_ are no grounds to impeach Obama. I doubt that these paranoid Republicans even know what impeachment means.
As I see it Republicans are unAmerican and not true patriots. Obama is doing everything he can to help America to get out of the mess Bush left us in and the Republicans are doing all they can to have him fail. This is clearly unAmerican and bordering on treason!
It is snowing here on Long Island.
It is snowing here on Long Island. White and quiet. My cousin died this week from breathing 911 poisons 10 years ago. Got no help from the feds or the city.Left two schoolkids. Its happening a lot around here but down the memory hole it goes.Its snowing here on Long Island. White and silent.
wq d
I'm so sorry to hear about your cousin----I have a friend in New York who can hardly breathe. Been sick ever since 9/11. We are all losing so much. People dying of the effects of governmental neglect and the greed of the top 1% who own this nation. War after war our young people die---for what? Now we are sad to lose our jobs, lose our homes, can't get care when we or our family members are sick.
This article tells us about how misinformed are the loyal Republicans. No different for the loyal Democrats. Any one notice our democracy is dead? One more sadness that the clean white snow can not erase.
We must comfort each other the best we can and start to talk to each other about what is going on. Can we come out of this sadness to relight a fire in our core? Can we struggle to recover our democracy? We, the people, have to come alive again as those people did in 1776.
The current cluelessness of the rank and file of the GOP is not surprising in the least, given its' purges of those who do not fit into what the Economist termed "Southern Fried Conservatism." Said purge began when Evangelical / Pentecostal Protestant Christians took over local GOP machines, then slimed their way up the political ladder, enabling the Bush error. Along the way, they got a media lap dog, Fox Noise Channel (others as well), that faithfully spews out propaganda to keep the dupes deluded. So it is not a leap to state that American Republicans have as warped a sense of reality as cult members.
I don't know how anybody in his right mind could still be for the Republican party (makes you wonder if Ron Paul has the Kucinich syndrome). Of course, I'm not saying the Dems are any better...they both absolutely SUCK in their own perverted way.
And a large portion of the Blue States think Obama is "Change We Can Believe In".
Not so much any more.
Thats ok , I know a large portion of the GOP are neocon butt kissin, gang stalking torture freaks, that are Stazi police rat fink stool pigeon scum bag spys.
All that, with Jesus, freedom is not free, united we stand bumper stickers under the American flag on thier cars.
AMEN, DO NOT AS I SAY DO AS I DO, FASCIST CORPORATE UNCONSTITUTIONAL PRICKS.
See , I can name call with the best of them.
The difference is, I am a living victim of these lunatics gang stalking torture, 3 years , 24/7.
A large portion of the GOP are fruitcakes, the rest are just evil.
It is all the fault of Walt sucking Disney. Over and over and over again that damn Walt Disney has screamed at us, preaching to us, that all we have to do is "believe" and our dreams will come true. No point in thinking, just BELIEVE! It's MAGIC! Walt Disney, like god, is responsible for a whole lot of pain, anguish, false hope, and lunacy. Impeach Walt Disney! Was Walt Disney born in the USA?
Yep.
But he later employed the Nazi rocket scientist Werner vonBraun as a technical advisor on a film or two.
And Disney was a hard right Republican to boot.
Jiminy Cricket used to sing this song:
Fairy tales can come true
They can happen to you
If you're young at heart.
This Wonder Bread kind of sentimentality is a hallmark of the Republicans, one of whom used to be Walt Disney.
Right or Left, we are all brothers and sisters in a country where love has taken a back seat to hate. The change that we can believe in has to be a spiritual change, one that brings US together. One that brings US to the middle with love. Instead of right vs left and the hate and paranoia which only produces the blame game, that both sides are guilty of.
I agree. That is the one thing that scares the hell out of politically, powerful, elite.If all Americans could forget party affliations and come together as one country, then the power would revert back to the American people,but as long as we let the corrupt leaders divide us nothing will change.
On this blog I see little tolerance or love as they are fight the republicans with the same hate the republicans have in their hearts ~ a no win situation for sure.
How many of you want to bet that the same percentages of these self confessed Republicans also believe in 'The Rapture(tm)' (as described by Tim Lahey), guardian angels, creationism/'Intelligent Design', UFOs, 'Evil Pinko-Commie plots', and Fox News?
Galen, UFO's? I personally don't think there is a high percentage of these types who 'go there'.
I can tell you, as a practicing psychologist that individuals who are very narrow and closed in their perspectives are usually not interested in much beyond their very personal sphere. Interest in and acceptance of life in an infinite universe, or as astrophysics now accepts, multiverses, is not even on the radar screen here.
Of course there are no doubt exceptions. I personally believe that the human race is not the only self aware life forms in existence. And quite frankly, in my humble opinion, if this were to somehow be 'seen' or proven, it could make a huge difference in our mass reality.
What do you think would have happened if Obama had truly been a progressive (as many people who voted for him were hoping/wishing), picked a real reformist team of committed individuals, and had bulldozed through his way to carry out real reforms (that assumes that the Democrats in Congress went along, or were forced to go along, with a progressive agenda), over the objections and cries of "socialism" from the Republicans? The poll numbers from a Republican base might still not be too different, but at least half the country would be better off, more energized, and even many in the other half would be deriving benefits even while complaining outwardly. Wouldn't that be a better way to face the same poll numbers - making half the people happy, instead of everyone unhappy? Anyway, it's late at night...
And it might even have the added benefit of eventually winning over some of the incorrigible right-wing reactionaries. If life started to become easier for people, with fewer worries about health insurance premiums going up; wages, benefits and pensions being slashed; unemployment benefits running out, etc., maybe people would be less fearful and angry, and might start looking at their fellow Americans as friends rather than enemies. Then imagine if you threw free university education in there! We'd be smarter, happier and less stressed out... The right-wingers might realize, hey this socialism stuff isn't so bad after all.
Of course, that's the sad irony: He would get much better poll results even from the troglodytes if he showed some progressive leadership, and by doing so he would defuse a lot of this right-wing craziness. It's precisely his lack of leadership that leaves the trogs free to rant and rave and call him a "socialist" (ha ha).
But alas his actions are not intended to provide leadership. He is not a leader. He is a servant to his masters.
Agreed with the several posts above!
Why bother polling Repuglies for their opinions? They dont have their own opinions.
Save yourselves the trouble and just ask Roger Ailes what opinions he will be issuing to them.
I bet the Republicans wont take impeachment "off the table".
Just in - 100% of non-GOP respondents dont give a crap what a bunch of ignorant GOP inbreeders think.
Not true!
We are worried that they will destroy this president and this country.
If 2,000 represent 39% of the GOP - life is good.
Because they represent the GOP that still believes that Trickle Down Economics works, the economy will prosper without regulating financial institutions, that women have no rights over their bodies, that owning guns is necessary to enforce peaceable living,stem cell research is evil, regardless of how many lives it save, creationism is the only valid view of how life on earth came to be, that waging war on Iraq was necessary because they did have weapons of mass destruction, Dick Chaney is an honorable person, that regardless of what the rest of the world thinks, global warming does not exist, and that standing in one’s garage makes them a mechanic.
They also think the world is flat and has only been here for 6,000 years. Ignorance and racism are powerful stimuli.
Of course these and other poorly educated fools do not understand that a member of the Democratic elite cannot be a socialist. That is even true for Bernie Sanders who has socialist ideas but is not a member of a Socialist Party or a Social Democratic Party.