In a recent diary, I took note of the rightwing theme of the week, said theme being that we're all gonna die in a mushroom cloud thanks to President Obama's treasonous extension of a treaty originally proposed by Ronald Reagan and ratified by George H.W. Bush:
In a teaser for a segment on Fox News today, anchor Megyn Kelly wondered aloud about the new nuclear START treaty President Obama is about to sign with Russia.
"Now critics are asking, will the new deal leave the U.S. defenseless until it's too late? Coming up, next hour," Kelly said.
Fox then cut to footage of a nuclear bomb exploding into a mushroom cloud before going to commercial.
(Go ahead and click over to the diary, the expression on Kelly's face is priceless.)
Various other idiots such as Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich reliably ginned up the panic, even going so far as to deliberately misrepresent what was in the treaty. Well, apparently the panic isn't taking hold with the American public...
A new CNN poll (warning: PDF) has come out, and it doesn't speak well for Fox's influence on the body politic:
As you may know, President Obama and the President of Russia recently signed a treaty to reduce the number of nuclear weapons of each country, but the treaty will not take effect until the U.S. Senate votes in favor of it. Do you think the U.S. Senate should or should not vote in favor of that treaty?
Should 70%
Should not 28%
No opinion 2%
Even more remarkable, in my opinion, is the number of Americans who believe in the goal (often articulated by Ronald Reagan, but of course mocked and derided when repeated by President Obama) of completely eliminating nuclear weapons:
As a general goal, which of these two do you think is more desirable: the elimination of all nuclear arms in the world, or for a few major countries including the U.S. to have enough nuclear arms so no country would dare attack them?
Elimination of all nuclear arms 50%
Few countries have nuclear arms 49%
No opinion 1%
Wow, this "center-right nation" sure seems to contain a lot of peace-loving hippies, though the poll also states that only 25% of us think a nuclear-free world is even possible.
As for the general fear factor: how paranoid generally are Americans about the prospect of nuclear war?
How likely is it that the United States will become involved in a nuclear war in the next decade -- very likely, somewhat likely, not too likely, not at all likely?
Very likely 12%
Somewhat likely 26%
Not too likely 29%
Not likely at all 32%
No opinion 1%
As a point of reference, the poll cites results from another poll asking the same question way back in 1980:
Very likely 13
Somewhat likely 22
Not too likely 36
Not likely at all 26
No opinion 3
So all the rightwing propaganda and fearmongering of the past three decades, bolstered by the mighty media machine they have built over that time, has managed to take the "we're all doomed" level from 35% all the way up to 38%. I don't know about you, but the American public comes across as fairly sober-minded and reasonable to me in this poll, especially considering the relentless barrage of fear and nonsense coming from the usual suspects.
Propaganda FAIL.
Info about the poll:
Interviews with 1,008 adult Americans conducted by telephone by Opinion Research Corporation on April 9-11, 2010. The margin of sampling error for results based on the total sample is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
H/T to Greg Sargent at The Plum Line for giving me the idea for my title.