Poll: About a Third of Republicans Think We Should Bomb Aladdin

By Joanna Rothkopf | December 18, 2015 | 4:50pm

Politics

A new national survey has found that 30 percent of Republican primary voters would support bombing Agrabah, the fictional country in Aladdin. Tight.

The Public Policy Polling survey questioned 532 Republican primary voters across the country about their opinions of the candidates (Trump is at 34 percent, Cruz at 18 percent, Rubio at 13 percent; everyone else is in the single digits, while Jim Gilmore and George Pataki are at zero).

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The poll also asked a number of questions gauging the respondents’ level of Islamophobia, including whether or not they support a ban on Muslims entering the U.S. (54 percent support, 25 percent oppose, 21 percent unsure), whether they believe New Jersey Arabs cheered on 9/11 (36 percent believe, 35 percent don’t, 29 percent unsure), whether they support the creation of a national database of Muslims (46 percent support, 37 percent oppose, 17 percent unsure).

Those questions led up to the question about the bombing of Agrabah—which 13 percent of respondents opposed, and about which 57 percent were unsure.

So, while it was a troll, it was an illuminating troll. In all the Islam-related questions leading up to the Agrabah question (it was question number 38) anywhere from 28 to 54 percent of respondents felt that extreme measures had to be taken to defend the country from a perceived threat. That said, it is unsurprising that a portion of these respondents would want to bomb any vaguely Arab-sounding country.

PPP also tweeted the following, which does not appear in the survey:

Notably, 79 percent of respondents support a criminal background check for everyone who wants to buy a firearm, and 80 percent would support a bill banning people on the terror watch list from purchasing a firearm. Sen. Ted Cruz, Sen. Rand Paul, Sen. Marco Rubio, and Sen. Lindsey Graham all voted against such a bill. Carly Fiorina didn’t, because she is currently unemployed, but she wants you to know that she would have.

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