The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water and breeds reptiles of the mind.–Blake, Proverbs of Hell
Some praise at morning what they blame at night, but always think the last opinion right.–Pope, Essay on Criticism II
So many men, so many minds.–Terence, Phormio II, 4
Attitudes, behaviors, and attributes (qualities of individuals and groups) are the things that social scientists study. Here we will focus on attitudes. I will use a recent event as a case study where I will highlight concepts such as strength, direction, status construction theory, and social identity theory.
The Politics of Anti-Christ
Several weeks ago, I walked into a barbershop and took a seat. To busy myself, I flipped through a couple of magazines. The barber in front of me struck up a conversation with the fellow seated before him. The barber was short, white and in his 60s. The customer fit the same demographics except for few things. One thing was he was a bit odd—before taking his turn, the customer sat very close (almost hugging) to a gumball machine. About every five minutes he would get another handful of gumballs and shove them into his mouth. Another difference between the customer and the barber was that the customer was quite unkept. I can not remember the exact words but the conversation went something like this:
Barber: I was listening to Jimmy Swaggart[1] last night on the radio.
Customer: hmmm
Barber: He talked about the Obama and the coming of the Anti-Christ. [Actually, I interpreted the barber, through his gestures and nuances in his speech, to suggest that Obama and the Anti-Christ were one and the same.]
Customer: I am glad that Swaggart didn’t run for president.
Barber: hmmm
Customer: Bush was not much better.
Barber: But Bush Senior and Reagan were right.
Customer: ….
That experience got me to wondering just how many Americans believe in Armageddon and or the anti-Christ. Consider these results from a 1999 Newsweek nationwide poll of 755 adults.(Woodward and Underwood 1999). Forty percent of all respondents believe in Armageddon. The range is from a high of 71 percent of Evangelical Protestants to 18 percent of Catholics.
Q. Now, regarding your own religious beliefs: Do you believe that the world will end, as the Bible predicts, in a battle at Armageddon between Jesus and the Antichrist?
| All Adults | All Christians | Evangelical Protestants | Other Protestants | Catholics | |
| Yes | 40% | 45% | 71% | 28% | 18% |
| No | 42% | 39% | 18% | 54% | 57% |
| Don’t know | 18% | 16% | 11% | 18% | 25% |
Another question asked respondents, who believed in biblical prophecy about Armageddon, “Do you believe the Antichrist is on Earth now?” Forty-seven percent said yes, 31 percent said no, and 22 percent did not know.
The Public Policy Poll (PPP) conducted a survey in September 2009 in New Jersey of 500 likely voters (Debnam 2009). They were asked, “Do you think Barack Obama is the Anti-Christ?” Overall, eight percent of the sample agreed that the president was the anti-Christ and 13 percent were not sure. Likewise, eight percent of male and female respondents agreed that Obama was the anti-Christ. By race and ethnicity, 7 percent of whites and 24 percent of Hispanics said yes. What is even more interesting is the percentages by race of respondents who were not sure if Obama is or is not the anti-Christ: 12 percent for whites, 18 percent for Hispanics, 11 percent for African Americans, and 15 percent for others.
Another interesting finding in the PPP data is that 5 percent of Obama voters thought he was the anti-Christ and another 5 percent who voted for him were not sure! Refer to table below.
By Voting Pattern
| Total | McCain | Obama | Someone Else/Don’t Remember | |
| Yes | 8% | 12% | 5% | 5% |
| No | 79% | 68% | 90% | 77% |
| Not Sure | 13% | 21% | 5% | 18% |
The latest data on Obama and the anti-Christ is from the people at Harris Poll. Harris Interactive conducted an online poll in the first week of March 2010. There were 2,320 respondents (Taylor 2010). Respondents with higher levels of education are less likely to agree that Obama is the anti-Christ. Eighteen percent of respondents with only high school or less agreed, followed by 13 percent for respondents with some college, 9 percent for college graduates, and 4 percent for post-graduates.
Next, I compared the New Jersey PPP results with the National Online Harris results (Yes, Obama may be/is the Anti-Christ) along political ideology and party affiliation. Nationally, Republicans and Independents are much more likely to believe Obama is the anti-Christ than for the New Jersey sample. This is especially true for independents, where nearly three times as many independents at the national level agree with the statement than do the New Jersey sample of Independents.
By Poll and Party Affiliation
| New Jersey | National | |
| Democrat | 6% | 6% |
| Republican | 14% | 24% |
| Independent | 4% | 13% |
Respondents at the national level are more likely to say that Obama is the anti-Christ but the magnitude of difference along political ideology about this question between the New Jersey and national sample was not as large as was the case for party affilliation.
By Poll and Political Ideology
| New Jersey | National | |
| Liberal | — | 8% |
| Moderate | 6% | 9% |
| Conservative | 18% | 24% |
Given all the information above, who are these people who believe President Obama is the anti-Christ? What values, beliefs, and norms do they share? How do they confront competing realities? This is the point of the chapter.
Following the Thomas Theorem, if people believe something is real, it is very hard to dissuade them, even with facts. Wang and Aamodt (2008) wrote:
False beliefs are everywhere. Eighteen percent of Americans think the sun revolves around the earth, one poll has found. Thus it seems slightly less egregious that, according to another poll, 10 percent of us think that Senator Barack Obama, a Christian, is instead a Muslim. The Obama campaign has created a Web site to dispel misinformation. But this effort may be more difficult than it seems, thanks to the quirky way in which our brains store memories–and mislead us along the way.
We tend to lose the source of our ideas and beliefs. Wang and Aamodt (2008) mentioned that loss is called source amnesia. What it means is that we tend to forget where and the circumstances that we learn factual statements and that over time, we may create layers of inaccurate information. The authors note that politicians and their handlers know this fact and use it to their advantage (Swift Boaters, Health Care legislation, etc.). Our “factual reality” is based more on emotions and who we associate with than with objective reality. The implications, then, are that if a person believes something to be true, is is hard to counter their beliefs, even if you have the facts on your side.
I must realize, as a sociologist, that my efforts to realize a progressive agenda must be flexible enough to deal with people who are at opposite positions to me. For instance, I deeply disagree with Tea Partiers on a number of issues. Rather than confront them with facts which they will ignore, I need to find a way to work through their rationalizations and misinformed ideas to find areas of mutual concern. This is not easy to do with this group. I also need to be aware of my biases towards Tea Partiers. I thought they were ill-educated and were blue-collar. I was wrong–they are the opposite. The major difference between them and typical Americans is they are very mad. Why are they mad? Because they perceive someone is getting something more than they are. Also, there is race. Recall the lady in the health care debate saying she wanted her country back? A lot of racial animosity drives the Tea Party movement.
References
Debnam, Dean. 2009. Obama Popularity Dropping in New Jersey. Raleigh, North Carolina: Public Policy Polling http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/surveys/2009_Archives/PPP_Release_NJ_916.pdf.
Taylor, Humphrey. 2010. ‘Wingnuts’ and President Obama. Harris Interactive http://news.harrisinteractive.com/profiles/investor/ResLibraryView.asp?BzID=1963&ResLibraryID=37050&Category=1777.
Wang, Sam and Sandra Aamodt. 2008. “Your Brain Lies to You.” New York Times. June 27. Obtained at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/opinion/27aamodt.html. Accessed on December 17, 2009.
Woodward, Kenneth L., and Anne Underwood. 1999. “The Way the World Ends. (Cover story).” Newsweek 134:66.
Zernike, Kate and Megan Thee-Brenan. 2010. “Poll Finds Tea Party Backers Wealthier and More Educated.” New York Times. April 14. Obtained at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/us/politics/15poll.html . Accessed on April 16, 2010.
[1] Jimmy Swaggart is a famous radio and TV evangelist who ran into trouble in the late 1980s for soliciting sex from a prostitute. Edit
