America’s political wingnuts create an ugly mood of fear and loathing

AMERICANS — don’t you just love them? Actually, by and large, I do. There’s an ugly snootiness in some quarters in Ireland, and Europe more broadly, towards the US and its citizens which was never quite going to be eradicated by the election of Barack Obama. I have written as much before.

But one recent poll, commissioned to coincide with the publication of a new book by erstwhile New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s former speechwriter, called into question even my pro-Americanism.

On the heels of healthcare, the Harris poll appeared to reveal that 40% of Americans think Obama’s a socialist and 32% think he’s a Muslim. A smaller proportion, 13%, think “he wants the terrorists to win” while 14% believe “he may be the Antichrist”. Step back a moment and ponder that. Something like 35 million adult Americans think not that his policies are misguided but that he is a supernatural personification of evil who will do battle with Christ in the last days.