this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2026
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I think these polls are interesting but tell us more way more about the media landscape than the people being polled.
For starters, about 3-5% of the population has ASPD or borderline symptoms. About 1/4 of the general population suffers from a mental illness and 35-50% of extreme cases go untreated in high income countries.
So right there we would expect probably ~10% of the population completely disconnected from normal social function. In the USA those numbers are probably a bit inflated because conservatives have consistently gutted any programs that might target those issues and keep people functioning in society.
Of course that's not to say everyone suffering from an untreated mental illness is automatically a fascist. What's interesting is how the GOP (and Heritage Foundation and Koch brothers, et al.) have accomplished is a near total capture of that population.
When was the last time you interacted with someone completely unhinged (*in real life) who wasn't spouting fascist propaganda? Gone are the halcyon days of off-putting, but relatively benign, alien/bigfoot conspiracies. Those vulnerable groups have been co-opted and put into lock-step with fascism via targeted disinformation.
Amplify that skepticism into the mainstream and suddenly you'll have another 10% or more who find its palatable and convenient to accept simple and ugly regressive answers to their problems ("Mad about healthcare? You're smart enough to know that's not a lizard people conspiracy, it's brown people taking your taxes!"). Believe it or not, people can be racists or asshole without automatically licking fascist boots and signing up for ethnic cleansing.
Then take that solid 20% and astroturf a bunch of hateful fascist narratives online and another apathetic chunk will just go along with it ("Well I didn't look too closely but 15 RealAmericanPatriot accounts said it was self defense, they can't all be wrong")
All this to say if you see 80% in a US poll that is universal support from the general population that exists in the same universe as you. If you see more than 80%, then the fascist base actually cracking. From that perspective these polls are mostly rage bait because you won't see a change in polling until the change is really obvious in real life.