Americans remain divided over whether there is a war on Christmas, but those who believe in one see it as a “yuge” problem in need of a classy solution.
Public Policy Polling surveyed 1,267 registered voters and found that 47 percent of them believed that a war on Christmas was once again afoot. A plurality of those believers (29 percent) said that New York businessman and Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump was the best choice to defend the country from anti-Christian forces.
Trump, a Presbyterian, has used religion to his advantage on several occasions, calling into question President Obama‘s Christian faith (as well as his American citizenship) and mocking fellow candidate Ben Carson‘s Seventh-day Adventism by saying “I just don’t know about” that denomination.
While barely one in four Democrats (26 percent) believe there is a war on Christmas, a majority of Republicans (56 percent) believes in the war. This might have something to do with the fact that Fox News, the conservative cable network, trumpets the existence of the war every year.
PPP’s holiday-season poll also found that 38 percent of Americans enjoy fruitcake, while 52 percent do not, with a sharp divide between Republicans (50 percent favorability) and Democrats (39 percent).
Perhaps seeking to make a comparison between life and art, the left-leaning polling firm also surveyed voters on the “reindeer primary” and found that Rudolph, the candidate with the best name ID, garnered support from 46 percent of Americans, with the rest of the field barely registering (Dasher came in second with 9 percent).
For those tracking Santa’s purported party affiliation, PPP found that Americans were more willing to label him an independent this year than they were in 2012. Twenty-eight percent of Americans said the jolly bearded man was a Democrat, down from 44 percent after the last presidential election, and 22 percent said he was a Republican, down from 28 percent.
Photos via Gage Skidmore/Flickr (CC BY SA 2.0) and Loozrboy/Flickr (CC BY SA 2.0) | Remix by Jason Reed