Christmas data dump
by digby
PPP did some polling on Americans’ attitudes about Christmas. Here are the highlights:
A majority of Republicans may not believe in Santa but if he does exist they know one thing about him- he’s white. GOP voters nationally by a 54-6 margin say that Santa is white, with 41% having no opinion one way or another. 57% of Democrats have no opinion on this question and those who do are relatively divided, with 26% saying Santa’s white to 18% who say he’s not.
As it turns out the whole ‘Merry Christmas’ vs. ‘Happy Holidays’ debate is something that Trump voters get a whole lot more worked up about than Clinton voters. Only 5% of Clinton voters say they’re offended by the phrase Merry Christmas, compared to 19% of Trump voters who say they’re offended by Happy Holidays. Trump voters say by a 69-4 margin that they prefer the phrase Merry Christmas to Happy Holidays. Meanwhile 63% of Clinton voters say they don’t care, with those who have a preference split between Merry Christmas (23%) and Happy Holidays (14%).
Only 34% of Americans think there’s a War on Christmas, to 51% who don’t. That’s down from 3 years ago when 41% thought there was a War on Christmas to 47% who didn’t, so evidently the war on the War on Christmas is one we’re winning. 60% of Trump voters do still think there’s a War on Christmas to 25% who say there isn’t though. In fact 24% of Trump voters say that the War on Christmas concerns them more than a potential war with China would.
Much has been made of economic anxiety driving the support of Trump voters this year, so here’s one final data point on economic anxiety for the year. While Clinton voters view the holiday Kwanzaa favorably by a 62/5 margin, Trump voters are evenly divided on it at 30/30. If having a negative opinion of Kwanzaa doesn’t spell e-c-o-n-o-m-i-c a-n-x-i-e-t-y I don’t know what does. Overall Kwanzaa comes in with a 47/18 favorability rating, compared to 91/5 for Christmas and 75/5 for Hanukkah.
Trump’s been pimping the war on Christmas theme throughout his campaign and has been making as ostentatious display of saying “Merry Christmas” at his Nurembuerg rallies post-election.This is one of his big appeals.
No word on what his Jewish daughter and grandchildren think about all this. But then they have no reason to fear the white nationalists who are painting swastikas all over the country and saying “Heil Trump.” That’s for the little people.
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