Bush Supporters Out To Lunch

Here is part of the analysis from a report of a poll conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes. I take an interesting part from the report for its applicability here in the blog but the rest of the analysis is worth reading where they try to explain the roots of the resistance to Bush unfriendly information due to a "bond" that was formed in the aftermath of 9/11.

Analysis
It is normal during elections for supporters of presidential candidates to have fundamental disagreements about values (such as the proper role of the government) or strategies (such as how best to defend US interests). As we have seen, the current election is unique in that Bush supporters and Kerry supporters have profoundly different perceptions of reality. So why is this the case? And, more specifically, why are Bush supporters holding so clinging so tightly to beliefs that have been so visibly refuted? As discussed, one key possible explanation for why Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq had WMD or a major WMD program, and supported al Qaeda is that they continue to hear the Bush administration confirming these beliefs.

Another possible explanation is that Bush supporters cling to these beliefs because they are necessary for their support for the decision to go to war with Iraq. Asked whether the US should have gone to war with Iraq if US intelligence had concluded that Iraq was not making WMD or providing support to al Qaeda, 58% of Bush supporters said the US should not have, and 61% assume that in this case the president would not have. To support the president and to accept that he took the US to war based on mistaken assumptions is difficult to bear, especially in light of the continuing costs in terms of lives and money. Apparently, to avoid this cognitive dissonance, Bush supporters suppress awareness of unsettling information.

This tendency of Bush supporters to ignore dissonant information extends to their perceptions of world public opinion. Despite an abundance of evidence that world public opinion has opposed the US going to war with Iraq, only 31% of Bush supporters are aware that this is the case, and only 9% are aware that Kerry is a more popular candidate than Bush in world public opinion.

Finally, Bush supporters also frequently misperceive their candidate’s foreign policy positions. In particular they tend to assume that he supports more pro-multilateral positions than he, in fact, does. In all cases, there is a recurring theme: majorities of Bush supporters favor these positions they impute to Bush. They have trouble believing that Bush does not favor them too.