Maybe Congress really is a reflection of us?

last updated 11 January 2015

While a wide majority of Americans look at Congress with disdain, sometimes it’s important to look at the context. Our lawmakers were elected by voters after all, who according to a new Public Policy Polling survey released this week, don’t always see the world very clearly.

A sampling of the more alarming results:

• 6% of voters believe Osama bin Laden is still alive.

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• 21% of voters say a UFO crashed in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947 and the federal government covered it up.

• 28% of voters believe secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government, or New World Order.

• 28% of voters believe Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

• 7% of voters think the Apollo moon landing was faked.

• 13% of voters think President Obama is the anti-Christ.

• 14% of voters say the CIA was instrumental in creating the crack cocaine epidemic in the inner cities in the 1980’s.

• 9% of voters think the government adds fluoride to our water supply for sinister reasons.

• 51% of voters say a larger conspiracy was at work in John F. Kennedy's assassination, while just 25% say Lee Harvery Oswald acted alone.

• 15% of voters say the government or the media adds mind-controlling technology to TV broadcast signals.

• 5% believe exhaust seen in the sky behind airplanes is actually chemicals sprayed by the government for sinister reasons.

• 15% of voters think the medical industry and the pharmaceutical industry “invent” new diseases to make money.

• 11% of voters believe the US government allowed 9/11 to happen.

So the next time you scoff at something dumb said by a lawmaker on Capitol Hill, keep in mind how they got there.

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Taegan D. Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political websites. He also runs Wonk Wire and the Political Dictionary. Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and COO of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. senator and governor. Goddard is also co-author of You Won â€” Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including The Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Christian Science Monitor. Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.