I have some strange fascination with statistics. I have as long as I can remember, and I doubt I’ll ever not be intrigued by them. So it’s perhaps no surprise that I’d really like the ability to compel millions of Americans to complete questionnaires. Unfortunately, I don’t have that power, so we’ll go with an unmeasurable trend.

Well here’s an unrelated one: I’ve noticed lots of pickup trucks with McCain-Palin stickers, some with “NObama” stickers, but not a single one for Obama. I suspect confirmation bias plays a role, but I’m also pretty confident that people who drive trucks are significantly more likely to have supported McCain than Obama. I’m fascinated by this, and would really like to explore the demographics of it.

But now to the titular observation: on September 12, 2001, I think an overwhelming majority of Americans thought that The Taliban was “the enemy,” and that they were a lunatic fringe group of Muslims. I was younger and less politically-astute then, so perhaps this isn’t the case. But these days, I see a frightening amount of people who think that “the enemy” is Islam, and that all Muslims are bad people: most are terrorists (in their mind), and the rest are just backwards people who hate freedom and Jesus.

I’m really curious if there have been opinion polls of the perception of Muslims. Has it, in fact, gotten progressively worse in the past years? I’ve read a surprising number of rants by far-right authors who truly believe that Obama is a Muslim, by the way, and that he’s deliberately trying to destroy America. I thought Bush was among the worst Presidents*, but never thought that he was on a deliberate quest to sabotage America, nor did anyone else I know.

I suppose it’s true that many of the parties we’re warring, or just enemies of, happen to be Muslim. But I don’t understand where the perception that Islam as a whole is our enemy comes from.

* But given that Clinton is the only other one I can actually remember, my experience is pretty limited