Why do Americans love wars so much? Did the overwhelming deluge of Star Wars marketing induce a sort of Pavlovian conditioning where any word from the movie’s title gets us all jazzed up (we also love stars, just saying), or did we all just watch too many cowboy movies when we were kids? Either way, a sizable portion of the American voting public seems to love the idea of blowing various foreign nations off the map, as long as they don’t have to put themselves in any personal danger in the process. Americans love wars so much that some of us are even okay with the idea of bombing fictional countries, according to the Democratic polling firm Public Policy Polling, who did some public policy trolling (sorry, couldn’t help it) in a recent survey.
According to the poll, 30 percent of those surveyed said they supported bombing Agrabah, the fictional kingdom that was home to Aladdin, Jasmine, and friends in Disney’s 1992 animated film. Only 13 percent opposed the plan, while 57 percent responded “Not sure.” (“Is that the city from Aladdin? It’s been 20 years since I saw that movie” was not an option.) And lest you think that the question was specifically picking on Republicans, PPP later said on Twitter that 19 percent of Democrats support bombing Agrobah, while 36 percent of them oppose it.
But while 30 PERCENT OF REPUBLICANS WANT TO KILL ABU WITH DRONES is an admittedly pretty sexy headline, there are a couple of factors to consider here. First is the extremely small sample size, with only 532 Republican primary voters participating in the poll. (For reference, 78 percent of the participants were over the age of 45, and 53 percent of those were male.) The question was also 38th on a list of 40, so respondents may have just been pressing random buttons in an rush to get the whole thing over with by that point. (Hopefully this also explains the question immediately preceding this one, where 28 percent of respondents said they support America’s policy of Japanese internment during WWII. Hopefully.)
And finally, some tough, but real, talk: Agrabah’s bazaars are infested with filthy, thieving street rats and its government run by a bumbling figurehead controlled by an evil, power-mad wizard who can change himself into a giant cobra. Can we really allow that kind of kingdom to exist, even in our imaginations?
What? Somebody had to say it.
[h/t Mediaite]
