Democrats and Republicans differ on conspiracy theory beliefs

Raleigh, N.C. – PPP’s latest national poll finds the American public differing along party lines on many conspiracy theories involving issues like global warming and the Iraq War, although some of the more bizarre ideas merit bipartisan skepticism.

The poll finds 28% of voters believe that a secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government, or New World Order. 34% of Republicans and 35% of independents believe in the New World Order threat compared to just 15% of Democrats.

44% of voters believe the Bush administration intentionally misled the public about weapons of mass destruction to promote the Iraq War, while 45% disagree. 72% of Democrats believed the statement while 73% of Republicans did not. 22% of Democrats, 33% of Republicans and 28% of independents believe Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Just 6% of voters think Osama bin Laden is still alive.

There is an intense partisan divide on whether or not global warming is a hoax: 58% of Republicans agree that it is a conspiracy, while 77% of Democrats disagree. 20% of Republicans believe that President Obama is the Anti-Christ, compared to 13% of independents and 6% of Democrats who agree. 51% of Americans believe there was a larger conspiracy at work in the JFK assassination, while 25% think Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. 29% believe aliens exist and 21% believe a UFO crashed at Roswell in 1947.

“Even crazy conspiracy theories are subject to partisan polarization, especially when there are political overtones involved,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “But most Americans reject the wackier ideas out there about fake moon landings and shape-shifting lizards.”

5% of respondents believe that Paul McCartney died and was secretly replaced in the Beatles in 1966, and just 4% believe shape-shifting reptilian people control our world by taking on human form and gaining power. 7% of voters think the moon landing was fake.

PPP surveyed 1,247 registered American voters from March 27^th to 30^th. The margin of error for the overall sample is +/-2.8%. This poll was not paid for or authorized by any campaign or political organization. PPP surveys are conducted through automated telephone interviews.

Topline results are below.  Full results, including crosstabs, can be found here.

Q1 Do you believe global warming is a hoax, or
not?
Do ................................................................... 37%
Do not ............................................................. 51%
Not sure .......................................................... 12%

Q2 Do you believe Osama bin Laden is still alive,
or not?
Do ................................................................... 6%
Do not ............................................................. 83%
Not sure .......................................................... 11%

Q3 Do you believe a UFO crashed at Roswell,
New Mexico, in 1947, and the US government
covered it up, or not?
Do ................................................................... 21%
Do not ............................................................. 47%
Not sure .......................................................... 32%

Q4 Do you believe that a secretive power elite with
a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually
rule the world through an authoritarian world
government, or New World Order, or not?
Do ................................................................... 28%
Do not ............................................................. 46%
Not sure .......................................................... 25%

Q5 Do you believe Saddam Hussein was involved
in the September 11th, 2001, attacks on
America, or not?
Do ................................................................... 28%
Do not ............................................................. 51%
Not sure .......................................................... 22%

Q6 Do you believe there is a link between
childhood vaccines and autism, or not?
Do ................................................................... 20%
Do not ............................................................. 46%
Not sure .......................................................... 34%

Q7 Do you believe the moon landing was faked, or
not?
Do ................................................................... 7%
Do not ............................................................. 84%
Not sure .......................................................... 9%

Q8 Do you believe President Barack Obama is the
anti-Christ, or not?
Do ................................................................... 13%
Do not ............................................................. 73%
Not sure .......................................................... 13%

Q9 Do you believe the Bush administration
intentionally misled the public about the
possibility of weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq to promote the Iraq War, or not?
Do ................................................................... 44%
Do not ............................................................. 45%
Not sure .......................................................... 12%

Q10 Do you believe aliens exist, or not?
Do ................................................................... 29%
Do not ............................................................. 47%
Not sure .......................................................... 24%

Q11 Do you believe the CIA was instrumental in
distributing crack cocaine into America’s inner
cities in the 1980s, or not?
Do ................................................................... 14%
Do not ............................................................. 55%
Not sure .......................................................... 30%

Q12 Do you believe the government adds fluoride to
our water supply, not for dental health reasons,
but for other, more sinister reasons, or not?
Do ................................................................... 9%
Do not ............................................................. 74%
Not sure .......................................................... 17%

Q13 Do you believe that shape-shifting reptilian
people control our world by taking on human
form and gaining political power to manipulate
our societies, or not?
Do ................................................................... 4%
Do not ............................................................. 88%
Not sure .......................................................... 7%

Q14 Do you believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted
alone in killing President Kennedy, or was
there some larger conspiracy at work?
Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone ..................... 25%
There was some larger conspiracy at work..... 51%
Not sure .......................................................... 24%

Q15 Do you believe in Bigfoot or Sasquatch, or not?
Do ................................................................... 14%
Do not ............................................................. 72%
Not sure .......................................................... 14%

Q16 Do you believe media or the government adds
secret mind-controlling technology to television
broadcast signals, or not?
Do ................................................................... 15%
Do not ............................................................. 70%
Not sure .......................................................... 15%

Q17 Do you believe that the exhaust seen in the sky
behind airplanes is actually chemicals sprayed
by the government for sinister reasons, or not?
Do ................................................................... 5%
Do not ............................................................. 87%
Not sure .......................................................... 8%

Q18 Do you believe that the pharmaceutical
industry is in league with the medical industry
to “invent” new diseases in order to make
money, or not?
Do ................................................................... 15%
Do not ............................................................. 69%
Not sure .......................................................... 16%

Q19 Do you believe Paul McCartney actually died in
a car crash in 1966 and was secretly replaced
by a lookalike so The Beatles could continue,
or not?
Do ................................................................... 5%
Do not ............................................................. 80%
Not sure .......................................................... 14%

Q20 Do you believe the United States government
knowingly allowed the attacks on September
11th, 2001, to happen, or not?
Do ................................................................... 11%
Do not ............................................................. 78%
Not sure .......................................................... 11%

Q21 In the last presidential election, did you vote for
Barack Obama or Mitt Romney?
Barack Obama................................................ 50%
Mitt Romney.................................................... 44%
Someone else/Don't remember ...................... 6%

Q22 Would you describe yourself as very liberal,
somewhat liberal, moderate, somewhat
conservative, or very conservative?
Very liberal ...................................................... 11%
Somewhat liberal ............................................ 16%
Moderate......................................................... 31%
Somewhat conservative.................................. 23%
Very conservative ........................................... 19%

Q23 If you are a woman, press 1. If a man, press 2.
Woman ........................................................... 50%
Man................................................................. 50%

Q24 If you are a Democrat, press 1. If a Republican,
press 2. If you are an independent or identify
with another party, press 3.
Democrat ........................................................ 38%
Republican...................................................... 34%
Independent/Other.......................................... 28%

Q25 If you are Hispanic, press 1. If white, press 2.
If African-American, press 3. If other, press 4.
Hispanic.......................................................... 11%
White .............................................................. 72%
African-American ............................................ 12%
Other............................................................... 5%

Q26 If you are 18 to 29 years old, press 1. If 30 to
45, press 2. If 46 to 65, press 3. If you are
older than 65, press 4.
18 to 29........................................................... 15%
30 to 45........................................................... 20%
46 to 65........................................................... 45%
Older than 65.................................................. 20%

Comments

[Dorian West]

Most people are plain stupid, ill-educated, celebrity worshipping, sports star worshipping idiots. The fact that these so called conspiracies are believed by the minority does not in any way invalidate them. In fact it makes them more credible since only the few would investigate them. Only 8% of Australians have a tertiary degree, does that mean you’d go to a doctor/dentist/lawyer without a tertiary degree if such a person was even allowed to practice.

If you changed “reptilian aliens” to “demons” what would the majority Christian Americans who believe in demons, say?

[Brendan]

"The poll finds 28% of voters believe that a secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government, or New World Order. 34% of Republicans and 35% of independents believe in the New World Order threat compared to just 15% of Democrats...."

Of course! Democrats like world government, see nothing wrong with it, and don't think its a conspiracy. JFTR, how secret is this elite, when we have a supreme court justice stating...

"I would not look to the U.S. Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012,”

http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/06/justice-ginsburg-causes-storm-dissing-the-constitution-while-abroad/

She, of course, shows this in all her supreme court decisions.

The vast majority of democrats and foreign governments believe in "positive rights". This includes concepts such as free housing, free medical, etc. But notice, when someone gets something like "free" housing, someone else has to pay for that. Which means that you are taking something - money - from someone else. Money requires, in most cases time, of which we have but a limited amount of here on this planet. You are, in essence, enslaving others to create these positive rights.

The beauty of the US Constitution is that it enshrines rights that are inherent to the individual. You don't have to take something from someone else to have them. One is socialism, and slavery. The other liberty. Here in the US is the among the last places where the concept of positive rights hasn't completely taken hold, but it is making headway. And with it, liberty dies. That's not a conspiracy. Its reality.

[Bill Ellis]

One of the questions in particular is a bit vague.

Q18..." Do you believe that the pharmaceutical
industry is in league with the medical industry
to “invent” new diseases in order to make
money, or not? "

This kinda sounds like they are in labs making new bugs... But I do believe that it is a fact that some conditions that were never considered big problems have been elevated to "disease" status, been given new medical sounding names, and have had profitable medicines developed to remedy them.

[k]

"44% of voters believe the Bush administration intentionally misled the public about weapons of mass destruction to promote the Iraq War."

This is considered a 'conspiracy theory' in the U.S. on the level of Big Foot and aliens?!?! You people have no shame. So the so called "downing street memo" and the UN weapons inspectors returning to Iraq in 2003 and looking for wmds inside Saddam's personal home and the US invading anyway despite its pretensions that weapons inspection is what this was all about- all this didnt happen. You really are going to go with this? Unbelievable.

[james]

Brendan,

I'll take a bit more a bit of 'positive' in my rights please. I just paid $1500 out of my pocket to have my son's broken wrist patched up in the local emergency room. 2 hour in the hospital and a fat bill in the mail. Ahhhh... liberty. Would you consider that appropriate market value? Do you really think kids that get hurt or sick should be the only ones supporting your hospitals? The rest of the world doesn't call that liberty - they call it selfish, cruel, and embarrassing.

The alternative to positive rights is a nation that is horribly careless and cruel to it's poor and uninsured.

The reps. consipre against me, the dems. are actually trying to help this country out of the dark ages.

[John]

Good job, k. You really put the conspiracy theorists' best face forward on that one.

[bryan]

People don't think critically about anything. Everything is a conspiracy and every incident has to have some grand sinister intentions behind it. Instead of just recognizing that the selfish forces that motivate ppl cause certain events, they think instead that hundreds or even thousands of people are working together unequivocally (and maybe even against their interests) to hide top secrets.

I'm talking specifically about governmental conspiracies. I think a few ppl in on these conspiracies would write a book and produce documents revealing them to the public. They would make a lot of money.

[Dan]

Who paid for the study?

[Ron]

Whether there was a conspiracy behind it, this is mostly thought-control BS. In any event, I imagine Dean Debnam believes in the wacky government-authored conspiracy theory about 9-11. Probably even accepts it uncritically. And is snotty about it.

[Indigo]

The Best way for a Conspiracy to succeed is to get everybody preoccupied about things that happened 10, 20, 50, 70 years ago. Such obsession allows one to fill the mind with reassuring nonsense to combat feelings of impotence in the same way buying an expensive car doesn't really invalidate the fact that you are getting older and slower.

Perpetuating conspiracies makes conspiracies stronger.