I wrote a post the other day saying that thanks to Donald Trump's proposal to ban muslims from entering this country, we would soon see if the GOP is controlled by the racists, bigots, and xenophobes -- or whether most Republicans still have a tiny shred of decency left. It looks like we have the answer to that question (and it's not good).
The chart above was made from information in a new Bloomberg Politics / Purple Strategies Poll. The poll queried 605 likely general election voters on December 8th (after Trump made his proposal), and has a 4 point margin of error. It's no surprise that 75% of Democrats opposed his bigoted and unconstitutional proposal, and it's gratifying to see that a majority of the general public (53%) also opposed it. The result among Republicans was far different.
Republicans, by a whopping 64% (nearly two out of three), support Trump's plan -- and that was after the poll questioners added the following two paragraphs (and then re-asked the question).
Donald Trump called for the temporary ban, saying “Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad.”
Leaders from across the political spectrum have condemned this policy, saying that banning members of an entire religion from entering the country goes against everything we believe in as Americans. And it will make our country less safe by alienating the allies we need to fight ISIS.
It seems that most Republicans don't care what the nation's leaders think (even their own GOP leaders) -- and they don't care about the plan's constitutionality or other drawbacks. They are quite happy to be bigots.
I wish I could say I was surprised by this, but I've long suspected it. The Republican Party is now controlled by the most extreme elements of our society.
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Those Bloomberg results were also verified by a new Rasmussen Poll done on December 8th and 9th (see chart below).