CNN/Opinion Research has released a poll (pdf.) taken January 14-16, 2011, which has some rational findings about the Tucson shooting, and some perverse findings.
The rational finding is that an overwhelming majority of people (66%) recognize that such shootings will still take place regardless of what government does. This view accurately reflects the reaility that Jared Loughner was not living in reality, and that stopping people like Loughner is incredibly difficult.
Two other findings, however, prove the power of false narratives.
First, the poll asked various questions as to the specific causes of the shooting. This question was not a generalized question about violence in general or political strife, but specific to this shooting.
Despite the facts which have come out showing that Jared Loughner was not a political person and was motivated by his own delusions rather than politics, 25% of people believe that “the use of harsh rhetoric and violent metaphors by politicians and commentators” contributed “a great deal” to the shooting with another 23% believing such rhetoric contributed “a moderate amount.” (32% said “not at all” and 17% said “not much.”)
Among Democrats, a total of 67% believed political rhetoric contributed (39% great deal, 28% moderate amount, 15% not at all, 16% not much). Among those identified as Opposed to Tea Parties the numbers were 40% great deal, 29% moderate amount, 14% not at all, 15% not at all.
Such responses show that the evidence notwithstanding, the narrative of “harsh rhetoric and violent metaphors” causing the shooting has sunk into the public consciousness.
But the more disturbing question was whether the shooting was caused by a “map on Sarah Palin’s website that marked 20 congressional districts, including the district represented by the congresswoman who was shot, with an image that looked like the crosshairs of a gun.”
Remember, there is not a shred of evidence that Jared Loughner ever saw the map. As discussed here numerous times, the connection of the map to the shooting was a complete fiction concocted moments after the shooting by certain left-wing bloggers who spread the connection into the mainstream media.
Nonetheless, 19% of people say the map contributed a “great deal” to the shooting and another 16% a “moderate amount.” (44% say “not at all” and 15% “not much.”) Among Democrats, the numbers were 32% great deal, 24% moderate amount, 24% not at all, 18% not much. Among people identified as Opposed to Tea Parties, a total of 58% believed the map was a cause of the shooting (34% great deal, 24% moderate amount, 18% not at all, 19% not much
That a total of 35% of people (and 56% of Democrats) believe that a Palin map Loughner never saw contributed in some meaningful way to the shooting demonstrates the method to the madness of those who were spreading the Palin map myth before all the dead had been counted.
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Comments
Tomorrow on Morning Joe. " 41% say that Palin was to blame according to CNN poll". Figures don't lie, but liars figure.
We have the megaphone & we will tell you how we want you to think how it went down. Good to still see (for now) Americans can mostly put the pieces together correctly.
But note the model for the new reality: Press reports extremism, Barack comes out down the middle. Triangulation to the extreme.
The DNC and their outliers learned long ago to adopt the Stalinist Big Lie strategy to demonize an opponent rather than allow gullible citizens to scrutinize the actual record of the dictator in charge. Obummer's minions conventiently try to blame Palin for everything from Global Warming to the decline of the dollar. The Phoenix shootings were just another excuse.
When you have JournoList wannabes and deep pockets like Soros behind the gigantic lamestream media conspiracy, the weak-minded gullible liberals will all march forward arm-in-arm to blame Palin like the Gore-bots and Obama-bots they are.
They'd be pitiful, if they weren't such self-righteous insufferable whining delusionaries.
Here's what we have to keep in mind whenever considering polls showing that some percentage of Dems or Reps believe in one thing or another: people are abandoning both parties in droves. Polls are forming conclusions from data that is being gathered from shrinking segments of the population.
That is why I ignore polls showing, for instance, that Huckabee is leading in Republican polling with 21% of Republican voters (7-8% of all voters or about 3% more than me after subtracting the sampling error). The number of people who identify as Republicans is down to 29% compared to 38-39% in 2004. So how important is what the hard-core nose holders think? More important that what those who left and are leaving think?
Dems are down to 31% from over 40% in 2008 of which about 19-20% of voters will always be hard-core socialists. Okay, so the more than half of the 56% (or about 16% of all voters) now believe the Palin map myth, what does that really say? That Democrats are becoming more liberal and becoming nuttier? No. It means that the Democratic party is shrinking and those remaining are the nuts. So how important is what the die-hard nutty minority think? More important than what those who have fled and continue to flee the party think?
Since about 18% of Republicans are hard-core nose-holding Republican-uber-alles drones, does that say that Republicans are becoming more liberal as they keep nominating Democrats? No. It means that the Republican party is shrinking and those who actually think are leaving.
The important number is the 40% of voters who now identify with the Tea Party. That number keeps growing. Does that mean that Americans are becoming more liberal? Hardly. They are abandoning both parties for the same reasons. And now we are going to be forced to watch our one-party corruptocrats link arms in a phony call for unity during the State of the Union address.
Yeah, that'll work.
Being a Democrat means never having to cite facts or evidence.
The [VERY] good news is that the percentage of liberals is declining year-by-year so that it is now less than 20% while self-described conservatives now are 42% and a CLIMBING pct. of the electorate.
The [VERY] bad news is that the lemmingstream media remains firmly in the hands of said diminishing liberal minority, from which commanding heights they pirouette to their deaths like the Great Grey Lemming herself whose paid circ is now below 800K and in free-fall. Pretty soon, that Mexican billionaire will have to buy out the Sulzbergers.
So until the horde of lemmings is culled to near zeor, we'll have to put up with the zero-sum minds of the liberals.
Hi Bill!
I agree with most of what you wrote. If I were asked the question about 'political rhetoric' and the shooting(s), I would have to confess that I just don't know. Few if any people do. So … Palin's map s/b irrelevant. But why did the Palinites come out with that 'surveying instrument' nonsense? I think she meant it to be a scope reticle (not the 'crosshairs of a gun; guns don't have crosshairs). She should have left it at that, stood by her guns, so to speak. Now the Palinites look like they are full of PC crap, because they are. What waffling. I also think she should have used a Mil-Dot reticle, but hey … I'm just a hick from the sticks, what do I know …
That a total of 35% of people (and 56% of Democrats) believe that a Palin map Loughner never saw contributed in some meaningful way to the shooting demonstrates…
Here, let me finish this one for you.
It demonstrates that if you are sound mind, then regardless of your ideological positioning you should never never never never never never never never never never never never never never never (pause for breath)…ever, never never not ever, want democrats to run anything important. Not unless they can prove to you that they're among the 44% who can think clearly.
This needs to make it into some GOP commercials in 2012. Seriously, these people are supposed to be in the process of building a perfect society in which everybody has a place and everyone is welcome…and MOST of them can be programmed with somebody else's hate, inside of a week or two, by means of simple repetition.
Why anyone would want them running anything more complicated than a weed-eater is entirely beyond me. Apologies to the noble lawn care people out there for the comparison…
Comparisons between modern liberalism and the 'progressive utopia' of Huxley's /Brave New World/ are appallingly easy to draw.
And,…this is why they keep peddling such garbage. It works. They key phrase being, "the narrative of "harsh rhetoric and violent metaphors" causing the shooting has sunk into the public consciousness".
It keeps on getting easier to get 56% of Democrats to believe anything, as the sane continue to flee the Democrat party, doesn't it?
I called my representative (Joe Wilson) both at his Columbia office and at his DC office, and sent him a nice email. I informed him that we were watching, that we are engaged and expect him to practice fiscal conservatism and fight this onslaught of socialist/marxist ideology, and that we are NOT opposed to voting for a third party in 2012. I have heard no reply from 'ol "you lie". we'll see.
~100% of Democrats voted for Obama. Sorry if I can't feign surprise at the stupidity of these people.
Looks like Arthur S. Brisbane, the ombudsman of the New York Times, is tentatively slipping out from under the flood of calumny (ht, Ed Morrissey at HotAir, here) printed in their paper regarding what they hastily concluded was the political context of the Arizona shooting.
First, though, he offered up an overly generous and detailed explanation of how and why the paper's first story on the incident made the egregious error of reporting that Giffords had died from the gun shot. Personally, I've never seen a simple fact correction in the NYT exceed 25 words or so. But this went on for ten paragraphs before he finally concluded:
"
. . . In the 1440/7 news cycle, and in the environment of the newsroom on Jan. 8, time seemed unavailable. On this particular day, things were happening quickly and simultaneously, and a mistake was made.
. . . ."
Only then did Brisbane take the first baby steps explaining the paper's role in framing the story by blaming the shooting on Sarah Palin and right wing rhetoric.
"The Tucson shootings afforded another, quite different illustration of the pressure of time in news coverage — not pressure measured in seconds and minutes, but pressure that news organizations feel to define the context of a story, to set up a frame for it, sometimes before the facts can be fully understood.
The Times’s day-one coverage in some of its Sunday print editions included a strong focus on the political climate in Arizona and the nation. For some readers — and I share this view to an extent — placing the violence in the broader political context was problematic.
. . . .
"
He went on from there to offer what can perhaps best be described as a framework for understanding how the story was framed the way it was, and he even offered a few (lame) excuses for the emergent storyline. But in the end he concluded that time was indeed the culprit in both cases, and concedes that journalistically shooting first and asking questions later might not have been the best approach:
"Whether covering the basic facts of a breaking story or identifying more complex themes, the takeaway is that time is often the enemy. Sometimes the best weapon against it is to ignore it, and use a moment to consider the alternatives."
Gee, maybe he saw CBS 60 Minutes last night, too!
Has anyone produced a volume approximating a Field Manual of Strategies and Tactics for Defeating Chaotics [leftists, progressives, liberals, communists, etc.]?
I seem to recall scattered efforts along this line, such as Malkin's recent teratologies of leftist/liberal (a cruel confiscation and stupid abdication of a fine word) hate and violence.
But a comprehensive study and presentation, complete with lessons learned from actual operations? I am unaware of one.
I think that we should coin a word in order to identify these people similar to Truthers and Birthers. Shall we start calling them mappists perhaps?
Just a suggestion.
@ the Other Ken: "Chaotics"
All those numbers reveal to me is Jared Loughner isn't the only one in need of some serious, professional, psychological help.
Do 56% of Democrats Believe Palin Map Myth, or do 56% of Democrats want pollsters to think they Believe Palin Map Myth?
The media is far more concerned about the smaller number of people who believe that Obama was not born in Hawaii.
Bush=mass murderer: fine.
Palin=mass murderer: fine.
Obama=not born in Hawaii: What's wrong with you wacko nutcases? You people are dangerous to America! Ban Fox News!
So many Democrats will believe everything fed to them by their media without question. This is really no surprise…
You're looking at it all wrong. To scammers the list of those believers would be worth a fortune.
Well, the numbers would have been much worse were it not for the strong pushback provided by the Republican party and leading lights on the right against the smearing of conservatives, the Tea Party & Sarah Palin. Oh wait….
Linked: 'CNN Poll: Majority Says Palin's 'Crosshairs Map' Not to Blame in Arizona Shooting — 49 Percent Say 'Harsh Rhetoric' Not a Factor'.
"All this was inspired by the principle–which is quite true within itself–that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously."
Adolf Hitler , Mein Kampf