A Disturbing Poll

People on MSNBC were talking about the newest Kos/Research Poll 2000 of self described Republicans, in which 2000 Republicans were polled over the telephone. Knowing that the left can exaggerate the absurdity of the right wing, I went on the Kos Media website to check out the poll for myself. My confidence was not exactly bolstered by the statement that the Kos poll was at least as accurate as the Rasmussen polls favored by the Fox propaganda cable. I thought the pollsters might have cherry picked the states, but this does not seem to be the case. I am not going to nit pick this poll. In fact, I am urging people to go to the Kos website to see it for themselves. The results make it appear as though my comments about the lunatic right taking over the Republican Party are correct, but bear with me on this because I think there is more than meets the eye. Let me start by giving a few results of the poll:

36% still think President Obama was not born in this country.
24% think Obama wants the terrorists to win.
21% think Acorn stole the election.
53% think Sarah Palin is more qualified to be President than Obama is.
31% think Obama is a racist who does not like white people.
23% think states should secede from the Union.
51% oppose sex education.
77% think Geneses should be used to teach creationism.
31% would outlaw contraception.
76% think abortion is murder.

This is only a sampling of the poll, but it is enough to make any reasonable person think the Republicans have definitely gone off the deep end. The question then is why such a high percentage of Republicans appear to be so extreme and delusional. Part of the problem may be that “self described Republicans” were the ones who were polled. One of the oddities of the electorate today is the fact that so many people who usually vote for a particular party still describe themselves as independents. Voters seem to be reluctant to identify themselves as being part of a major party. This fact excludes from the poll many of the more reasonable people who usually vote for Republican candidates. Having said this, however, I think the poll is still instructive. People who do describe themselves as a member of either party are the activists and form the base of that party. This means that the poll does reflect the views of the people who are deciding who is reactionary enough to be a Republican candidate. Yes, I said reactionary. The people who have the views stated above are not really conservative, and I refuse to abuse that word by calling them conservative. I supposed I could have called them neo-cons, but that is really a euphemism for reactionary. And I do not like euphemisms.

I know some people are going to look at the numbers above and say that people who share many of those extreme views are not in the majority. I will concede that, but they have more influence than their numbers indicate because they make so damn much noise. Furthermore, the percentages are large enough for them to turn elections, particularly primary elections. This is why it is so difficult for reasonable Republicans to distance themselves from those extreme views. The only way that the Republican Party can return to the political center is if that party suffers enough catastrophic defeats to convince even the lunatics that they must be willing compromise. In order for that to happen the Democrats must be energized. President Obama’s grass roots must take hold and those people must turn out. They must realize that this goes beyond fighting for change we can believe in. The elections of 2010 are a referendum on mental health. If the extremists gain ground, the entire country loses.