A MAJORITY of Americans now agree with banning all non-citizen Muslims from the United States, according to a new poll coming less than four months after Donald Trump first proposed the policy.
A YouGov/Huffington Post poll published this week found that 51 percent of Americans now support the ban, up from 45 percent in December. The same poll also found strong support for Sen. Ted Cruz’s proposal to “patrol and secure” Muslim neighborhoods, with 45 percent of Americans in favor.
The poll was conducted through web interviews with 1,000 Americans from YouGov’s “opt-in internet panel using sample matching” and “weighted using propensity scores based on gender, age, race, education, political ideology, geographic region, and voter registration.” (YouGov has also conducted polls for the New York Times and CBS; high-profile statistician Nate Silver has written about its methodology here.)
The rhetoric about Muslims and undocumented immigrants during this election cycle has raised fears of an increasingly toxic political culture in the country. Throughout the election campaign, Republican politicians have expressed openly bigoted views about minority communities in the United States, in many cases to widespread public approval. Trump’s campaign kicked off with his characterization of undocumented Mexican immigrants as “rapists,” and has seemingly gained steam with every discriminatory remark made since.
While opinions on these issues often split along partisan lines, a majority of Americans now support policies like Trump’s, which would be both unconstitutional and discriminatory. Exit polling in some states shows nearly 80 percent of GOP primary voters in support of Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims from the United States. Whether or not Trump is elected and able to implement the ban, such figures are a troubling reflection of what policies Americans would countenance if offered the chance.
“Even if Trump loses, we still lose,” says Haroon Moghul, a fellow at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding. “He’s pulled much of America beyond the Constitution, and made it OK to advocate for bigotry again. He didn’t create this, but he’s taking years of hateful rhetoric to their inevitable conclusion.”
“Eight years ago, we congratulated ourselves on how we were allegedly the only country that could elect an Obama. Now we’re a country that would’ve banned his father from entering the country.”
Top photo: Donald Trump, left, accepts his Muhammad Ali award from Ali at Muhammad Ali’s Celebrity Fight Night XIII in Phoenix, Ariz., March 24, 2007.
IT’S EVEN WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT.
What we’re seeing right now from Donald Trump is a full-on authoritarian takeover of the U.S. government.
This is not hyperbole.
Court orders are being ignored. MAGA loyalists have been put in charge of the military and federal law enforcement agencies. The Department of Government Efficiency has stripped Congress of its power of the purse. News outlets that challenge Trump have been banished or put under investigation.
Yet far too many are still covering Trump’s assault on democracy like politics as usual, with flattering headlines describing Trump as “unconventional,” “testing the boundaries,” and “aggressively flexing power.”
The Intercept has long covered authoritarian governments, billionaire oligarchs, and backsliding democracies around the world. We understand the challenge we face in Trump and the vital importance of press freedom in defending democracy.
We’re independent of corporate interests. Will you help us?
IT’S BEEN A DEVASTATING year for journalism — the worst in modern U.S. history.
We have a president with utter contempt for truth aggressively using the government’s full powers to dismantle the free press. Corporate news outlets have cowered, becoming accessories in Trump’s project to create a post-truth America. Right-wing billionaires have pounced, buying up media organizations and rebuilding the information environment to their liking.
In this most perilous moment for democracy, The Intercept is fighting back. But to do so effectively, we need to grow.
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I’M BEN MUESSIG, The Intercept’s editor-in-chief. It’s been a devastating year for journalism — the worst in modern U.S. history.
We have a president with utter contempt for truth aggressively using the government’s full powers to dismantle the free press. Corporate news outlets have cowered, becoming accessories in Trump’s project to create a post-truth America. Right-wing billionaires have pounced, buying up media organizations and rebuilding the information environment to their liking.
In this most perilous moment for democracy, The Intercept is fighting back. But to do so effectively, we need to grow.
That’s where you come in. Will you help us expand our reporting capacity in time to hit the ground running in 2026?
We’re independent of corporate interests. Will you help us?
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