Americans feel threatened by lots of things — For example, lots of Americans FEAR Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President BARACK OBAMA almost equally

According to a recent Reuters Poll, Americans apparently view both Putin and Obama as almost equally threatening [especially give the poll’s margin of error of 2.1%]  —   But Republicans see Obama as a BIGGER THREAT to the United States than Putin

According to the folks at the Reuters News Service, “People in the United States feel under threat, both from beyond our borders and within them. In fact, when asked about both U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin, it was a pretty darn close call — 20 percent saw Putin as an imminent threat compared to 18 percent who said the same about Obama....” (See “Americans see Putin as only slightly more imminent threat than Obama, poll says” by Peter Van Buren, 3/30/15, Reuters News/ reuters.com
[http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/03/30/americans-see-putin-as-only-slightly-more-imminent-threat-than-obama/]).  However, at the end of the Reuters article it was noted that “[t]he 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....”  —  That would put Obama and Putin into a statistical tie.

LOTS OF REPUBLICANS THINK THAT THE BIGGEST THREAT TO AMERICA IN THE WORLD IS ITS PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

It’s not so surprising that Republican partisans see Barack Hussein Obama as a bigger threat than Russia’s Vladimir Putin.  According to the Newsmax report on the Reuters Poll,  “...[a] third of Republicans believe President Barack Obama poses an imminent threat to the United States, outranking concerns about Russian President Vladimir Putin ....   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[at 25%]....”  ( See “Reuters Poll: Republicans See Obama as More Imminent Threat than Putin,” from Reuters feed, 3/30/15, Newsmax [http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/republicans-obama-bigger-threat/2015/03/30/id/635187/]).
What is perhaps more interesting is that many Republicans also see Obama as being a bigger threat than almost anything else  —   for example as a threat  ahead of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by that same 34% to 23%.... but Obama is not seen as threatening as some other generic threats like terrorism or a nuclear armed Iran.

Twenty-seven percent (27%) of Republicans saw the Democratic Party as an imminent threat to the United States. However, 22 percent (22%) of Democrats deemed Republicans to be an imminent threat.

LOTS OF DEMOCRATS FEAR OTHER DEMOCRATS —  AND LOTS OF REPUBLICANS FEAR OTHER REPUBLICANS

There are many interesting results in this Reuters Poll. Try this one on for size  —   “It’s also interesting to see that both sides of the political aisle are worried about themselves: 38 percent of Democrats and 42 percent of Republicans think their own party is something of a threat. Politics makes for strange bedfellows, but when you’re scared of the party you’ve gotten into bed with, something seems amiss....”

THE RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OF OTHERS BOTHER LOTS OF AMERICANS

The Reuters folks ask, “...Should we be surprised that 25 percent of respondents see Islam as an imminent threat?”  Then they point out that “ ... [l]ower on the list of beliefs and movements we feel are imminent threats sit Judaism and Christianity (7 and 6 percent, respectively), thus pulling in all three major Western religions. Still, many Americans feel atheism is an even bigger threat — 12 percent....”  Also “... people see gay rights (12 percent) and women’s rights (5 percent) as imminent threats....”

The Reuters report concludes thus: “We’re scared here in the home of the brave. We see danger everywhere, even viewing the religious beliefs of our neighbors and the expansion of basic rights to all Americans as imminent threats. There are real bad guys out there, monsters who would do us harm. But far too many of these survey results suggest we are also very scared of each other. Now that is a real threat.”

As somebody often said on “Laugh In” when we were all young and beautiful, “Verrry Intdereszting, but verrry schtupidt...”