While right-wing conservatives try their best to circumvent the movement to call out fake news online, a new poll shows that a disturbing number of Trump voters cling to obviously untrue myths about the 2016 election process and the Obama presidency.
The poll conducted for The Economist and YouGov contains some results sure to inspire eye rolls among those who actually pay attention to current events. It also shows the depths to which confirmation bias has shattered that whole idea of an informed electorate. Specifically, the mid-December survey found that people believe of disbelieve crazy conspiracy theories depending on whether the wild allegations fit in nicely with their political doctrine or partisan allegiance.
According to The Washington Post, the pattern is most dramatically revealed by public opinion about the laughable hoax known as Pizzagate. That was the tall tale based on online claims that Hillary Clinton and her campaign manager, John Podesta, were running a child sex slave ring out of a Washington pizza joint, as allegedly proven by code words in hacked Democratic emails.
The conspiracy was finally shot down – or so it seemed – when an unhinged man from North Carolina burst into the restaurant with an assault-style rifle, fired at least one shot, and only agreed to surrender to police after surveying the place and concluding that no sex-slaves were on the premises.
Yet, the poll, conducted after this bizarre attempt at vigilantism, still found that nearly half of Trump supporters still believe the Pizzagate story is true.
The ugly realities revealed by the poll do not stop there. A majority of those who back Trump still believe President Obama was born in Kenya, even after Trump, king of the Birther movement, finally admitted otherwise several months ago.
Other wacky results from the poll: Trump supporters believe that millions of illegal immigrants cast votes in the presidential election, they disbelieve by a wide margin that the Russians hacked Democratic information to help Trump’s electoral chances, and they scoff at the idea that the number of uninsured in America has declined substantially under Obamacare. Also on the health care front, they’re convinced that child vaccines cause autism.
However, Democrats also have their share of nutty beliefs. Bernie Sanders supporters hold on dearly to the canard that the DNC intervened in the primary election process to give Clinton enough of an edge to win the nomination. And Clinton voters somehow believe that the Russians hacked the actual election tallies to give Trump an Electoral College victory.
The losers in all of this are those of us who don’t put party before country and don’t obsess over a favorite party winning the elections. Unfortunately, frighteningly, the days of easily discernible, solid information about candidates and solutions-based policies are fading fast.
