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Wednesday, August 23, 2023

More Believable Than One's Family or Clergyman?

This article in the Jerusalem Post contains a stunning statistic. It's based on a You Gov/CBS poll, apparently of Republicans, although the article doesn't make that clear. Nor does it say whether the survey respondents were likely voters, but even so,
Of those who believe honesty is very important in a candidate, 61% said that they would likely vote for Trump, while only 17% said the same for DeSantis. The theorists behind the poll explained that Trump’s persecution has increased the perception of Trump as honest because Republicans are more likely to view the political system as corrupt. By positioning the corrupt system against Trump, he is conceived as a protagonist character.

In one of the more shocking finds of the survey, a large number of Trump-voting participants expressed that they trusted what Trump would tell them is true (71%) more than they would trust what their friends/family (63%), other conservative media figures (56%), or religious leaders tell them as true.
This is a breath-taking statistic, and if it's correct it either indicates an astonishing level of credulity among many Republican voters or it speaks very poorly of the integrity of their families and/or their religious leaders.

Trump is credible when compared to the current president, to be sure, but compared to many other human beings, certainly compared to those in one's family or leading one's church, Trump's believability surely ranks considerably lower.

Of all the qualities he's known for based on the last six years, being more honest than the average family member or religious leader isn't something I would've guessed would make the list.

Anyway, there are lots of other interesting stats in the article although most of them are pretty much what one might expect from a survey of Republican voters.