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62 thoughts on “What Republicans believe, 2025 edition”

  2. jeffreycmcmahon

    Once again, the problem here is the _information environment_. If it was possible to eliminate Fox News etc. and actually provide _real news_ to the populace, a lot of these problems would solve themelves. Of course I have no idea how you reach a population that _wants_ to be lied to.

    1. Doctor Jay

      You know, I hold no brief for Fox, and I know people that have been grifted by them.

      AND, Fox doesn't have a tenth of the reach that Facebook disinformation does. And it's disinformation is much more difficult to counter since its narrowly targeted and invisible to the rest of the world.

      1. cephalopod

        The explosion of AI-written misinformation sites makes it almost impossible to counteract. The sheer number of sites saying the same thing gives the impression that they are more reliable. Standard information literacy practices, like lateral reading, don't work when you are knee-deep in an entire misinformation ecosystem.

        Part of this is simply having a public that is not yet savvy about social media. Most people have not developed heuristics or systems for determining credibility that will actually work in an environment of individual creators and small media outlets.

        It worries me that we will destroy liberal democracy before people figure it out, and then it will be too late. Or that it will take widespread disease and death.

        1. J. Frank Parnell

          The algorithms are also a big problem. Click on one anti-vax story and suddenly you are inundated with anti-vax stories. If you are not aware of what is really going on, it seems like the whole world is anti-vax.

          2. CAbornandbred

            Don't ever click on the outright lies. And cull your friends list down to people you actually know in real life. Facebook looks better then.

    2. Salamander

      It may be too late. The First Felon has devoted the last decade to poisoning that well. According to "Him", the "mainstream" news always lies and hates Republicans and good, freedumb-luvin' Amurkins. Don't listen to them! And the gummint is even worse! You can't trust the government (made up largely of Republicans) that YOU elected!

      Take away Faux and the other disinformation networks and social media cesspools, and even if the only information sources left are good, vetted and reality-based, nearly half the population will ignore them.

      This is going to take years, probably decades or generations, to heal. And it won't improve, unless a lot of us actually work at it.

    3. Jimm

      Censoring or wishing away speech you don't like is not how we do things, short of the known crowded theater exceptions.

      Just forget about it and work on counters, it's an open competition.

    2. TheMelancholyDonkey

      You'd probably find that at least 10% of any large group says they believe any crazy idea you put in front of them.

      1. Ogemaniac

        It’s already known that mis-choosing causes appreciable error in polls, on the order of a few percent. Combine this with deliberate trolling and you’ll get ten percent of respondents to say the sun rises in the west.

    3. Jimm

      Polling practices lead to a lot of confusion. When people are asked about something they've not really thought about, or don't really care about, often they'll accommodate with some kind of answer, that doesn't really mean anything or indicate what they really care about.

      Much more accurate and reliable results could be found by asking people first if they've even heard about something, or thought about it. If yes, then ask how much they care about it (on a scale). If no, what is politically on your mind?

      Then sure go ahead and ask the question if they support or not, but at least you know how to weight it, and learn what is actually salient with people at the same time (which can also be cross-correlated for further analytics as far as connected concerns).

  4. akapneogy

    And, in our winner-take-all system of politics (recently buttressed by the supreme court) the country will be governed as if the entire population believed what Republicans believe.

  6. CJColucci

    I'm always skeptical of polls that seem to create opinions rather than reflect them. Six weeks ago, did anyone, Republican or Democrat alike, even have an opinion on re-naming the Gulf of Mexico?

    2. bebopman

      Renaming the gulf isn’t the point. The fact that so many instantly will back whatever crazy idea he puts out there is the point. I doubt many cons even thought of immigrants in gitmo until he spewed that nonsense.

      He can say anything and has their support. That’s more than just Fox and x and Facebook. That’s a poison deep in the country’s veins that goes back centuries. And the country won’t even begin to get better until all of us, as a country, admit and face up to that poison.

      1. FrankM

        Yes. It's pretty clear that if Trump said we should launch a mission to bring back green cheese from the moon, half of Republicans would be on board.

      2. bouncing_b

        That’s more than just Fox and x and Facebook. That’s a poison deep in the country’s veins that goes back centuries.

        Yes. But why now?

        Is it just that we've been lucky until T showed up? I doubt that because he's not saying anything we haven't heard before, but it used to be considered fringe or worse.

        What makes today different is that we see similar around the world, in very different national situations: India, Turkey, Hungary, Brazil, ...
        There has to be a more general reason. I go for the neoliberal model creating the powerlessness we all feel in the face of the global corporations, who have learned to play governments like a toy, and the billionaires who have learned to do the manipulating.
        Or maybe just the pace of change leaving some fraction of people disoriented and susceptible to "only a strongman can fix it".

        1. Jimm

          Could be those advertising algorithms along with media sphere reinforcing whichever way you're already leaning...there's probably a way to study this by free time and hobby categorization (and overall media exposure), though I'd keep an open mind about it because we've seen social madness pop up in different centuries going back a long way.

    3. jdubs

      So it was the polling that caused people to think about the topic of renaming rhe Gulf of Mexico?
      It wasnt caused by the President of the United States declaring it would be renamed?

      Not sure about this conclusion.

  7. cld

    A key part of conservatism is exploitation of youthful enthusiasm.

    If you're older than youthful this seems like a key psychological failing, as much a public health menace as any pandemic.

  8. Anandakos

    I am praying nightly for H5N1 to jump the species barrier, gain human-to-human transmissibility and retain its ten-to-one lethality over Covid. GO FLU!

    P.S. I know it will get me too, because I have COPD. It's worth it. Twelve million MAGA's for me? A bargain.

  9. Joseph Harbin

    How many magas know that much of the aid distributed by USAID was money that paid dividends back home? Per a study cited by one TN pol, USAID agricultural research showed a return of $8.52 for each dollar invested.

    But it's all shut down.

    Of more than 10,000 employees of USAID, the Trump admin will retain about 290.

    Cruel, capricious, and questionably legal.

    1. Joseph Harbin

      Another data point: USAID purchases about $2 billion per year of rice, wheat, and other crops from US farmers.

      The red rural voters who put the orange menace back in the White House sure know how to screw their own pooch.

      1. Martin Stett

        And FoxNews will give them someone to blame it on. China, Soros, Joe Biden, take your pick. They will swallow it whole like the gumps they are.

      2. Jimm

        They can restore a lot of that funding via altered mechanisms, but maybe not until the tax cuts are extended (which all this cost-cutting activity will be used to justify, whether or not the numbers actually add up).

    2. MF

      This seems unlikely.

      USAID has Buy American requirements for some programs. This is one reason for its inefficiency - many times buying more locally would be more cost effective.

      But how can a dollar of food aid, even with a Buy American requirement, have more than a $1 return in the US? In actual fact it is less. You also have to deliver the food which means part of that dollar is spent locally.

    1. Chondrite23

      Yes. We got into a discussion with my brother-in-law about cutting foreign aid. When I told him it was only a few percent of our budget he looked confused for a minute then said it would still be a good start. I think he didn’t know that much of the money was spent here for food and medical supplies.

      It just galls some people that anyone else is getting even one penny of benefit. Fox, and all the other right wing propaganda-sphere just pick at this nerve over and over so that these people are just driven to distraction.

      The thing that gets me is how stupid these people are. You’d think they would see that they are being played and change the channel.

      1. MF

        It always amazed me how liberals make the argument that a government program is good because it spends money in the US.

        The purpose of government is NOT to take money out of my pocket to put in some other person's pocket.

        The justification for foreign aid must be that it advances US interests in the world, not that it gets spent in the US.

        1. Jimm

          Fair point, and foreign aid just isn't all that popular, this is about separation of powers to me, and Congress standing up for itself, first and foremost (and some pragmatic concern about deception as far as justifying tax cuts extension, at least for the very rich).

        2. lawnorder

          That's a psychopathically selfish point of view. Charity is just as appropriate at the national as at the individual level. The proper question is not whether the aid benefits the giver, it's whether the aid benefits the recipient.

        3. jdubs

          That the money advances US interests while also benefiting American companies and American employees seems like a very relevant piece of information.

          It's amazing that this confuses you.

          Selective outrage over what pockets the government should be interfering with is always comedy gold.

  15. bbleh

    As always with polls, it's not necessarily what they BELIEVE, it's what they SAY they believe, which in turn is heavily influenced if not determined by what they think will sound good, to the pollster or the audience or just to themselves. It's like polls asking "did you vote last election" that routinely return "yes" answers FAR higher than actual voting numbers; they say "yes" because that's the "correct" answer.

    In the case of Republicans, the answer to a poll question typically follows from a few basic principles:

    1. Our Tribe, and its orange god-king, are always right about everything, even when we directly contradict ourselves from one moment to the next or clearly break the law.

    2. We don't like: Black people, Latino people, immigrants other than maybe White English speakers, non-Christians except for SOME Jews, women who don't know their Proper Place, non-cis-heterosexuals of any kind, science, logic, fact-based reasoning, education generally, or social services of any kind EXCEPT ones that benefit us because of course we EARNED them.

    (I've probably left a few out.)

    Start with those, and you can most likely determine majority Republican "beliefs" on almost any poll question.

  16. iamr4man

    Republicans believe:
    The 2020 election was stolen from Trump
    Trump won a massive victory in 2024
    Elon Musk is doing great things for the country, he has already found incredible waste and fraud including $10’s of millions sent to Hamas and the Taliban for condoms
    Trump saved California by turning in the valve to bring millions of barrels of water from the Pacific Northwest which the liberal California Governor wouldn’t do because of a fish.
    Trump used his powerful negotiating skills and the threat of tariffs to get Mexico and Canada to guard our borders against illegal immigrants and fentanyl.
    Trump has boldly proposed a out of the box genius solution to Gaza
    Trump will right the wrong of giving Panama the canal we built
    Trumps proposals to acquire Greenland and Canada are genius and viable.
    Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods will be paid for by China and bring billions of dollars into our treasury
    All of the crimes that Trump was accused of were made up by vindictive libs, and besides everyone does it.
    White people, and Christians in particular, are the most discriminated against group in the U.S.
    Trump is a billionaire who could have retired and enjoyed a life of luxury but instead has selflessly worked to Make America Great Again.

  17. Martin Stett

    A blip on the radar, but Lachlan Murdoch announced a Fox streaming ap--two in fact--to carry the FoxNews banner into the new age.
    Which is to say cable is already dying by inches and he wants to get ahead of it. Of course the faithful will pay any price ($7.00/mo) to get their fix.

    But the people who already pay for it through cable fees but never watch it--even hate it--will not, and that's a huge revenue loss when cable finally goes belly-up. The anchors will have to hot-bunk hairpieces and do their own make-up.

  19. J. Frank Parnell

    The algorithms are also a big problem. Click on one anti-vax story and suddenly you are inundated with anti-vax stories. If you are not aware of what is really going on, it seems like the whole world is anti-vax.

  22. Jasper_in_Boston

    In some case Republicans believe these things. In many cases, they simply give the answer that they believe codes as supporting MAGA.

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