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Comment by oldmanjay | Hacker News Reader

The point that seems to missed here is that it doesn't matter if you feel or even are justified in your beliefs, because literally everyone feels justified in their beliefs too. Turning it into a name-calling contest is emotionally satisfying to an extent, but that's part of why today we have president elect trump, so is the satisfaction worth it?

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Two-thirds of Republicans still believe Obama was born outside the US. What possible justification do they have for that belief? Let's stack up our beliefs and see whose match more closely with "facts."

Here is a possible source for your claim(since you didn't provide one) - http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2015/PPP_Release_Nati...

The poll states that 44% of the queried republicans said "No" to the question.

I've never believed that these polls offer wisdom into the mindset of people - they're too reductive and simplistic.

Here's another from this year. http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2016/05/gop-quickly-...

13% think Obama is a Christian. 77% are not sure if he was born in the US.

I agree the "mindset of the people" is more complex than this, and such a belief about Obama may not be the main driver of their voting behavior.

But they are being truthful about saying they believe what they believe, right? They either believe it or they don't. In my eyes this kind of mass susceptibility to conspiracy theories is a huge sociological phenomenon that should be explored.

Your argument is orthogonal to my point, so I don't really have a response to it. Also I'm not sure if you're calling me out, or some set of abstract Republicans, but I'm not really here to do battle in any case, so I don't have any beliefs for the stack.

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