Going Back To My Remarks About Racism In America

You're wrong. Recent polls show that 17% of Americans and 23% of Republicans believe a "group of Satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media," and that 30% of Republicans view QAnon favorably. https://t.co/VVjYOPzGUZ https://t.co/JEbzuwC8YS

— George Conway (@gtconway3d) February 24, 2021

17% is not an insignificant amount, but neither is it 25% or anywhere close to 50%.  I'd like a baseline of conspiracy theories for comparison, and I don't mean thinkgs like flat-earth or the moon landing was faked (although I suspect you might find close to 17% when that conspiracy theory was at its most popular).

Racism and racist thinking is, I still contend, not fundamentally different from conspiratorial thinking.  It rests on misinformation and lies and fiction; it is fervidly adhered to by its proponents, and filters into the general culture in ways both malicious and perilous.  If anything it's even more pernicious, since the very concept of "race" was started to distinquish "us" from "them" (always a vast and shadowy horder who would take what "we" had, or certainly bring civilization into chaos if "we" were not ever vigilant.  What do you think "white man's burden" was?).  We talk about discarding racism.  Seldom do we talk about discarding the very concept of "race".

Far more than 17% of the American public holds some attitude about "race," which in itself is almost by definition an adherence to racism ("Oh, no!", we cry.  "Racism is fare worse than recognizing racial characteristics!"  But is it?  Really?  And no, we can't discard "race" with a wave of the hand and make everything all well again.  But until we work toward full equality for persons, and toward eliminating distinctions based on the very concept of race, we won't get to the former.).  So I'm wondering:  is 17% believe a completely crackpot notion of Satan worshippers and pedophilia secretly runs the world (replacing the International Jewish Conspiracy, among other things)(and again I point out the roots of this ridiculous notion lie in the news stories of the '80's and '90's, when mothers and fathers turned their children over to strangers for "day care," and the anxiety of the era gave rise to actual court cases in which people were convicted for Satanic worship and abuse, physical and sexual, of the children in their care.  That was nonsense and bullshit, too; but it was sanctioned by the courts themselves, through criminal convictions.  When even the courts are in on it, however well-meaningly, how do you prove it was all lies and frightening fairy tales?).

Sorry for so many digressions, but the question remains:  what is this 17% number in context?  As Forster said:  "Context is all."