Has the fringe gone mainstream?

A poll says a third of us are Obama 'birthers' or 9/11 'truthers—were we always this paranoid?

“Is extremism becoming mainstream in 21st-century American politics?” said Tom Jensen at Public Policy Polling. It sure looks like it, judging by our latest national poll. A third of the country, 35 percent, either thinks that Barack Obama was born outside the U.S. (including 42 percent of Republicans) or that George W. Bush intentionally allowed 9/11 to happen (25 percent of Democrats). And “a very troubled 2 percent” buys into “both conspiracy theories.”

It’s bad enough that only 59 percent of voters think Obama was born in the U.S., said Eric Kleefeld in Talking Points Memo, but 14 percent of Democrats say they think Bush is the Antichrist, and 19 percent of Republicans think the same of Obama. As PPP’s Jensen notes, it’s “strange times in American politics.”

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