Trump and Co. deepening the divide on Arabs and Muslims

Donald Trump and his GOP colleagues have exposed the depth of the divide in attitudes over the role of American Muslims in US society.

The results of a recent Zogby poll establish that the divide is existential rather than rhetorical, and is more demographic than simply partisan.

It has become less of a matter of competing political philosophies and more a question of the attitudes of the groups that now make up the mainstream of each party.

To be clear, fear of Muslims is not just a function of what this or that candidate says, because what the candidates are saying is a reflection of what the significant parts of the constituent base of each party believes.

And the two major parties are increasingly defined by the distinct demographic groupings of Americans that make up their core supporters.

When Republican candidates, for example, maintain that Muslims should not be trusted, that Muslim immigrants be banned, that Muslims should be profiled, or when candidates pledge to block President Barack Obama’s commitment to bring Syrian refugees to the US, or claim that Obama is a closet Muslim — they are echoing the views of a strong majority of Republican primary voters.

Our polling bears this out and it is a reality that must be understood and addressed. The poll of slightly over 1,000 likely voters was conducted by Zogby Analytics in the days after Trump made his comments calling for a ban on Muslim immigrants into the US.

It found that Trump continues to hold a substantial lead over the rest of the GOP field with the support of 38 per cent of Republican likely voters, and Hillary Clinton, at 56 per cent, maintains a commanding lead over her Democratic rivals.

We also asked all respondents a series of questions about their attitudes towards Arab Americans and American Muslims.

The results were d e e p l y disturbing, with the overall views of Democrats and Republicans being near mirror reflections of each other.

For example, while Democrats had a 51 per cent favourable view of Arab Americans, compared to 23 per cent who held unfavourable views, and had a 44 per cent/28 per cent net favourable view of American Muslims, Republican attitudes of Arab Americans were 34 per cent favourable and 44 per cent unfavourable, and a 26 per cent/53 per cent net unfavourable rating for American Muslims.

Similar divergent views were found with regard to whether or not voters felt confident that an Arab American or an American Muslim could faithfully carry out his/her responsibilities in a government position.

In each case, Democrats agreed that they could, while a majority of Republicans felt that Arab or Muslim Americans would be unduly influenced by their ethnicity or their religious faith.

The same divide could be found in response to questions regarding whether Arab Americans and American Muslims should be profiled or whether Syrian refugees should be admitted into the US, with six in ten GOP voters saying that Arab Americans and American Muslims should be profiled and the same percentage rejecting the president’s goal of accepting 10,000 vetted Syrian refugees a year.

The most striking gap occurred in response to the question about the president’s religion, with only one in ten Democrats believing that Obama might be Muslim and almost seven in ten Republicans asserting that he was either a Muslim (49 per cent) or had no faith at all (19 per cent).

In each instance, this partisan split masks a deep demographic divide, with older, white, less educated voters, especially those who are selfdefined as “born-again Christians” making up the largest proportion of Republicans, and African American, Hispanic, younger and more educated voters making up the Democratic side.

The poll also defined two important behavioural characteristics that, in addition to demographics, helped shape attitudes of voters on these issues: voters’ sources of news and whether they know any Arab and Muslims.

As expected, those who rely on Fox News held largely negative views on all these issues, but the same was true of CNN viewers. On the other hand, the 30 per cent of voters who rely on Internet or other news sources had significantly more favourable views on all the questions covered in the poll. Similarly, 30 per cent of all voters who knew Arabs and Muslims had substantially more favourable views of both communities and were more opposed to profiling them than the population at large.

And, once again, in each instance, we observed the same demographic divide in the make-up of each group. As significant as this Democratic/Republican divide might be, it becomes even more dramatic when we compare the attitudes of the sub-set within each camp supporting their party’s leading candidates.

While 53 per cent of Trump supporters have negative views of Arab Americans and 68 per cent have negative views of American Muslims, 69 per cent of Clinton supporters have favourable views of Arab Americans and 63 per cent view American Muslims favourably.

And while only 6 per cent of Trump supporters believe Obama is a Christian (60 per cent claiming he is a Muslim), only a handful of Clinton supporters say the president is Muslim while 74 per cent believe Obama is Christian. The Zogby poll identifies the magnitude and contours of the problem.

It is, to be sure, grave, for American Muslims and for my community of Arab Americans as well. Moreover, it is a dilemma for the Republican Party and for America — with no easy answers in sight.

A short while ago, I had a leading Republican strategist on my weekly TV show. I asked why the GOP establishment was not more decisive in confronting Trump.

His responses were telling. On the one hand, because Trump, Ben Carson and Ted Cruz are running against the establishment, attacks by that very group would only strengthen their appeal. And with these three candidates garnering almost 60 per cent of the GOP vote, the establishment is concerned about the risks involved in alienating such a substantial base of their party.

While that may be their concern, mine has to be for my community and my country. In recent weeks, some Republican leaders denounced Trump’s more outrageous positions (though some were careful not to denounce Trump himself).

Senator Lindsay Graham, however, distinguished himself with a full-throated rejection of Trump and his views. Because we are caught up in a horrific situation that we must be relentless in confronting — for our present security and for our future stability — we can only hope that more GOP leaders will follow Graham’s example.