Comments on: ACORN FAIL: 52% of GOP Conspiracists

By: Michael Roston - Newsbroke – Will Doug Hoffman’s sore loser strategy make him a 2010 winner in New York’s 23rd Congressional district? - True/Slant

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 04:48:18 +0000

[...] because 52% of Republican voters are now conspiracy theorists who a year after November 2008 think that President Obama stole the [...]

By: libtree09

libtree09 — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:14:28 +0000

Ms. Cottrell,

You must do a blog about this…its a bit ironic worried about indoctrination while being subjected to it…I find this very disturbing.

By: gymgoth

gymgoth — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 17:08:48 +0000

Excuse me, have you NEVER heard of “Bush Derangement Syndrome”? Most of the left and many Democrats on the Hill espoused this for 8 years. They said they accepted the Supreme Court decision but still referred to him as illegitimate. For most it was more because he did not win a popular majority—even though our Constitution mandates the Electoral College.

And don’t forget, Bush won re-election by 3% and millions of votes. Yet many, including some in the Kerry campaign, continued to talk about Diebold and Ohio. Very interesting in that if Ohio had gone Kerry’s way, he would have had an Electoral College victory yet would have lost the popular vote to George W Bush by more than 6 times as many that Bush lost to Gore in 2000.

But of course then the same people who called Bush illegitimate in 2000 would never have questioned Kerry’s legitimacy!

By: misterb

misterb — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 20:03:28 +0000

ACORN has taken over for THRUSH or SPECTRE as the bogey man for Republicans.The “steal-the-election” meme is about the evil ACORN more than it is about Obama. And by “steal”, I don’t think the Republicans mean act illegally, I think they mean act against the Republicans’ better interests. While they may think that ACORN illegally enlists voters, they don’t really think that millions of illegal voters changed the elections. They think that millions of legal voters shouldn’t have voted because they are too poor or too minority.
Really, those 52% of republicans aren’t crazy or even stupid, they’re just using the term “steal” in a different context.

By: Ryan Sager - Neuroworld – Comment of the Day - True/Slant

Ryan Sager - Neuroworld – Comment of the Day - True/Slant — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:06:16 +0000

[...] On: ACORN FAIL: 52% of GOP Conspiracists [...]

By: Megan Cottrell

Megan Cottrell — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 06:02:30 +0000

I think biased news sources can start a message that just keeps getting repeated in one circle until it’s twisted like an elementary school game of telephone.

Example: my husband’s family is very conservative. Evangelical Christians, homeschool, anti-evolution, etc. Last year, my niece, who’s 14 wrote a post on facebook about how she wasn’t going to let Barack Obama take her away to a concentration work camp for the summer and indoctrinate her with liberal ideas. She refused to go!

I couldn’t figure it out, until I saw that Michelle Bachmann had said something about how Obama’s stimulus money for kids to get summer jobs would include indoctrinating them with some sort of liberal values (as far as I know, not true). My niece heard this and felt she was going to be dragged away to one of these places. No one in her circle of people seemed to be able to correct her.

Where did she hear it? A tea party.

By: libtree09

libtree09 — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 03:00:43 +0000

Miss Cottrel,

I too find this interesting. Do you think this is a case of getting information from bias news sources? In the case of cable, right on Fox, left on MSNBC? It would be illuminating to give each dedicated viewer a questionnaire on current events.

By: ebizjoey

ebizjoey — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 02:11:38 +0000

We just had another election, were the polls open for amonth every day before the first Tuesday of November? No. Think it will happen again, never happened before.

By: Megan Cottrell

Megan Cottrell — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:20:43 +0000

I think your point about “false consensus bias” seems right to me and is exacerbated by the fact that we live in a politically-segregated country. It’s red states and blue states. Republicans and Democrats live separately and go around talking to each other, reinforcing their partisan and sometimes totally incorrect ideas and assumptions.

Great post. So interesting! I would say I can’t believe it, but, knowing a lot of highly liberal and highly conservative circles, I really can.

By: davidlosangeles

davidlosangeles — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:45:02 +0000

Mr. Roston,

I for one never even heard or read anyone actually say that Mr. Bush was planning a coup. I heard people say that other people were saying this but I never actually saw the original sources. There certainly were purple cheeked protesters marching around with loaded weapons proclaiming their preparation to prevent some sort of “Bush Putsch”.