One Out Of Four Americans Agree: 'I Can Find Iran On Maps!'

And other fun with Trump Iran war polls!

In the time between Donald Trump dumbassedly ordering the killing of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani and this morning, when he folded like a common folder (WHICH IS GOOD), a meme proliferated on Facebook, something along the lines of "I will listen to your thoughts on why we should war at Iran just as soon as you identify Iran on this map." It was a good meme! It didn't include any Russian disinformation, the map didn't have any fake hurricane dicks on it, it didn't ask for the name of your first grade teacher or your mother's maiden name, and it made its point succinctly. Most Americans had never heard of Soleimani before last week -- which is actually fine, most Americans have better things to do and aren't Iran experts -- but after the strike, all these MAGA dipshits started acting like he was their age-long sworn arch-nemesis, whose crimes only their orange God could avenge.

Well, some polling has finally come out on the Soleimani strike, and on warring Iran in general, and it's a good thing Trump caved like a common caver (WHICH IS GOOD) because if he thought a war was going to be good for pulling his approval ratings out of the shitter and making a majority of Americans not despise him, hahahahahahahahahahahahaha fuck off. (More on that in a second!)

The survey, from Politico/Morning Consult, also says how many Americans know where Iran is, on maps. It is 28 percent, or a little over one out of four. Or should we say, it's 28 percent when you show a regional map. When you show a map of the whole entire world, it's only 23 percent. (Hint: Iran is the great big one sandwiched between the other two countries we've been warring since 9/11, pop quiz NAME THOSE COUNTRIES!)

We are going to show you the Morning Consult map of the whole world because of how it is the more embarrassing one:

As Morning Consult senior data editor Joanna Piacenza explains, each dot represents a person's answer, or their wild shot in the dark. Kudos to all the people who got it right! Half-kudos to those who at least nailed the general region! No points for all the people who put Iran in "Italy" or "Australia"! And for the handful who located "Iran" somewhere in "Arkansas," well, they're probably from Arkansas, so bless their hearts.*

Now, before you go saying "haw haw, dumb Republicans," you should know that respondents from each party did about equally well on the question. Men did better than women, but men didn't actually do well , so shut up, men. No age group fared better than another, but higher education and income were predictors of doing marginally better than the rest.

As for actual polling on the Soleimani strike, it was similar to polling on "Do you hate Trump or do you love him?" Republicans were for it, Democrats were against it, and then there are always those squirrelly so-called "independents." In all, 47 percent approved of the strike (GO BOOM!), 40 percent disapproved, and the others went back to picking their butts after they got off the phone with the pollster. (All the numbers and questions are here. It's not even just about Iran.)

One key thing, though: It didn't do fuckall for Trump's approval rating, which, as always, fluctuates between "armpit fart" and "actual fart":

"Our polling suggests President Trump's standing with voters is at best unchanged amid fallout from the Soleimani killing," saidTyler Sinclair, Morning Consult's Vice President."This week, 56% of voters disapprove and 41% approve of the president's job performance, compared with 52% who disapproved and 44% who approved two weeks ago."

Womp womp. Digging deeper, that Trump 41 percent "approval" is not that solid either, as only 25 percent say they "strongly" approve. Meanwhile, on the disapproval number, solidly 45 percent are in the "strongly" category, which means they fucking hate him fucking hate him so much .

Trump might have thought war-boning Iran with his war-boner was going to be a good way to kick off his campaign or something. It sure seems like he did, as Amanda Marcotte writes at Salon about how the Trump campaign has gone absolutely fuckbonkers promoting Trumpy The Iran Slayer ever since last week.

Alas, it didn't go that way, and now, thank God, at least for now, it looks like Trump has stuffed Lil' Mario Kart back in his pants and doesn't intend to escalate into full-blown war with Iran.

We still think this was all Jared's idea. It's too stupid not to be.

* We are from Arkansas. Eat shit and go cow-tipping with a lesser Huckabee sibling if you don't like that joke. Don't bring your dog.  

[ Morning Consult / Politico ]

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