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 A Reuters/Ipsos online poll this month asked 2,809 Americans to
rate how much of a threat a list of countries, organizations and
individuals posed to the United States on a scale of 1 to 5, with
one being no threat and 5 being an imminent threat.
The poll showed 34 percent of Republicans ranked Obama as an
imminent threat, ahead of Putin (25 percent), who has been accused
of aggression in the Ukraine, and Assad (23 percent). Western
governments have alleged that Assad used chlorine gas and barrel
bombs on his own citizens.
Given the level of polarization in American politics the results are
not that surprising, said Barry Glassner, a sociologist and author
of "The Culture of Fear: Why Americans are afraid of the wrong
things."
"There tends to be a lot of demonizing of the person who is in the
office," Glassner said, adding that "fear mongering" by the
Republican and Democratic parties would be a mainstay of the U.S.
2016 presidential campaign.
"The TV media here, and American politics, very much trade on
fears," he said.
The Ipsos survey, done between March 16 and March 24, included 1,083
Democrats and 1,059 Republicans.
Twenty-seven percent of Republicans saw the Democratic Party as an
imminent threat to the United States, and 22 percent of Democrats
deemed Republicans to be an imminent threat.
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People who were polled were most concerned about threats related to
potential terror attacks. Islamic State militants were rated an
imminent threat by 58 percent of respondents, and al Qaeda by 43
percent. North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un was viewed as a threat by
34 percent, and Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by 27 percent.
Cyber attacks were viewed as an imminent threat by 39 percent, and
drug trafficking was seen as an imminent threat by a third of the
respondents.
Democrats were more concerned about climate change than Republicans,
with 33 percent of Democrats rating global warming an imminent
threat. Among Republicans, 27 percent said climate change was not a
threat at all.
The data was weighted to reflect the U.S. population and has a
credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of plus or minus 2.1
percentage points for all adults (3.4 points for Democrats and 3.4
points for Republicans.)
(Reporting by Roberta Rampton)
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reserved.]
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