The World

This poll would be frightening, if it wasn’t so funny. Or possibly funny, if it wasn’t so frightening.

A Harris poll of 2,320 American adults finds that 14% of Americans believe that Obama “may be the Anti-Christ”. Among Republicans, this figure rises to 24%. Some 32% think he is a Muslim – and 57% of Republicans think this. One in four Americans (25%) think that Obama was not born in America and is therefore ineligible to be president (45% for Republicans.) And 20% of Americans think their president is “doing many of the things that Hitler did” – 38% of Republicans think this. (Technically true, I suppose, Hitler ate, slept and went to the loo; and so does Obama.)

I think this poll gives a fair insight into the challenge facing Obama. He has to try to govern a nation that is heading for bankruptcy, where a large part of the population seems to be insane; and a significant minority believe him to be the Devil. Tricky.

Update: Read Clive Crook’s blog entry: Are Republicans just crazy?

Gideon Rachman thinks they might be. He is struck, as I was, by the startling numbers in a Harris poll that looked at Americans’ beliefs about Obama. One in four Republicans thinks Obama “may be the Anti-Christ”, according to this poll. Nearly 40% think he is “doing many of the things that Hitler did”. Gideon finds that these numbers give a “fair insight into the challenge facing Obama”–namely that Republicans are nuts.