New Poll Breaks Record For Honest Answers

Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.


In my Twitter feed, everyone is getting a big kick out of the question on the right from a recent PPP national poll of Republicans. Agrabah, it turns out, is the fictional city where Aladdin lives in the 1992 Disney cartoon. I’ve never seen the movie, so I didn’t know this before today.

Anyway, as much as I applaud PPP for turning their polls into a continuing series of jokes, I think people are taking the wrong lesson from this. Is it shocking that 30 percent of Republicans want to bomb a city they’ve never heard of? Not really. Maybe they confused it with Ar Raqqah, the ISIS capital. Maybe this was just a way of showing that they support a stronger bombing campaign in general. Who knows?

No, the big news here is that 57 percent admitted they weren’t sure. This is amazing. In polls like this, “Not Sure” usually gets about 10 percent, even for questions that it’s dead certain most people have no clue about. Overall, this poll question demonstrates an admirable ability to admit ignorance. That’s far less common than you might think.

PLEASE—BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please do your part and help us reach our $150,000 membership goal by May 31.

payment methods

PLEASE—BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please do your part and help us reach our $150,000 membership goal by May 31.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate