(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



Republicans are dumbing themselves down [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-09-06

As we all know, voters in the right-wing base are living in an alternate reality. They truly believe the lies they are fed, including absurd disinformation about the severity, treatment and prevention of COVID, the integrity of our election system, the reality of climate change, and the supposed disability of our President. Conservatives and Republicans have always had their biases, but nothing like the present.

Why do they accept this crap? Recent polling shows that Republican primary voters believe Donald Trump and generally disbelieve spokespeople who used to be respected. Similarly, Republicans trust Fox News and distrust mainstream news sources. Here are the data:

A recent (August 16-18) CBS News/YouGov poll of “likely Republican primary voters” asked:

“These days, information is everywhere. We’re interested in how you describe where you feel you get information that is true. For each of these general sources, do you feel what they tell you generally is either: true, they are being accurate; mistaken, but they are trying to be accurate; lies, they are intentionally saying false things to mislead.”

Your friends and family True: 58%, Mistaken: 38%, Lies: 4%

Donald Trump True: 53%, Mistaken: 25%, Lies: 22%

Conservative media figures True: 50%, Mistaken: 34%, Lies: 16%

Religious leaders True: 44%, Mistaken: 39%, Lies: 17%

Medical scientists True: 32%, Mistaken: 39%, Lies: 29%

Corporate leaders True: 16%, Mistaken: 39%, Lies: 45%

Social media influencers True: 10%, Mistaken: 38%, Lies: 52%

Liberal media figures True: 8%, Mistaken 16%, Lies: 76%

Joe Biden True: 10%, Mistaken: 11%, Lies: 79%

This is consistent with an earlier (April 3-9) YouGov poll. Here’s how Republicans answered, “How trustworthy do you rate the news reported by the following media organizations?”

Fox News Trustworthy: 55%, Untrustworthy: 15%

Newsmax Trustworthy: 42%, Untrustworthy: 13%

One America News Trustworthy: 36%, Untrustworthy: 11%

Breitbart News Trustworthy: 32%, Untrustworthy: 17%

Wall Street Journal Trustworthy: 38%, Untrustworthy: 29%

PBS Trustworthy: 33%, Untrustworthy: 31%

Associated Press Trustworthy: 29%, Untrustworthy: 33%

NBC News Trustworthy: 27%, Untrustworthy: 43%

ABC News Trustworthy: 29%, Untrustworthy: 45%

CBS News Trustworthy: 28%, Untrustworthy: 45%

NPR Trustworthy: 21%, Untrustworthy: 41%

Washington Post Trustworthy: 28%, Untrustworthy: 42%

New York Times Trustworthy: 22%, Untrustworthy: 52%

MSNBC Trustworthy: 19%, Untrustworthy: 57%

CNN Trustworthy: 25%, Untrustworthy: 61%

In the more recent poll, Donald Trump is nearly the most trusted source of information by Republican primary voters, just after “friends and family.” He’s considerably more trusted than “religious leaders.” (WOW!) Republican primary voters don’t trust “medical scientists” and think “corporate leaders” rarely tell the truth.

But it’s more complicated than that.

Only 53% of Republican primary voters believe that Trump is generally telling the truth while 47% think he is generally mistaken or lying. This is his own base! Half of this group believes “Conservative media figures” are telling the truth and half believe they’re generally mistaken or lying. 44% believe “Religious leaders” are telling the truth while 56% say they are mistaken or lying. In other words, this group of voters has become enormously cynical. They generally don’t trust anybody to tell them the truth, and the irony is, they’re mostly only listening to right-wing sources that lie to them.

In the earlier poll, Fox News seems to be trusted by Republicans, and maybe it is. But unlike the more recent poll, this earlier one did not give respondents the chance to say the source was trying to be accurate but was mistaken. One suspects that, given that option, Fox and the other right-wing media outlets wouldn’t do any better than “Conservative media figures” in the later poll.

Here are some conclusions from all this:

It is hard to see Republican primary voters deserting Trump when they think he is their best source of information.

It is hard to see Republicans changing any significant beliefs in reaction to anything they hear from mainstream leaders or mainstream news sources.

Because these voters hardly trust anyone to tell them the truth, it gives them license to believe whatever they want to believe. They are deaf to factual information.

And yet, all of that is mostly relevant to the primaries, not the general elections. In the key swing states and election districts, it would only take a very small shift by typically Republican voters to dramatically alter results in November 2024. So, it is extremely important that 22% of Republican primary voters think that Trump generally lies and 10% think that what Biden says is generally true. Further, half of these voters don’t trust “Conservative media figures” to provide truth while between 20% and 30% say they trust network news, the New York Times and the Washington Post.

With as many as one-in-five conservative voters, truth still has a chance.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/9/6/2191848/-Republicans-are-dumbing-themselves-down

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/

You are viewing proxied material from magical.fish. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.