Military Privilege: When Trump Supporters Want To Bomb Fictional Disney Muslims
A huge percentage of Donald Trump’s supporters have told Public Policy Polling (PPP) in a new poll this week that they would favor bombing the fictional Middle Eastern country of Agrabah from the Disney film Aladdin. A staggering 41% of them.
The PPP poll found that only 9% of Trump’s supporters are opposed to bombing a nation they certainly could not locate on a map… because it does not exist.
This is an enlightening study of the political acumen of Donald Trump’s supporters, and the poll reveals a new, heretofore undiscussed form of privilege: military privilege.
No other country comes close to America’s hegemonic military power, and as a result Americans have both a security and offensive capability unprecedented in world history. PPP’s poll shows that Americans who support Donald Trump have taken this power for granted, and that they want to use American force without regard for the effects of extremist, preventative military action.
It is so preventative that the prospective Agrabah bombing campaign would stop Agrabah from even transforming into a real-life nation, let alone posing an actual physical threat to the United States.
American Islamophobia has reached a new low, and conservative fear of all things sounding even remotely Muslim-y has reached the point that some conservatives support enacting violence against a nation they literally have never heard of within a foreign policy context. They want to bomb the Disney kingdom out of ignorant reflex just because America’s military supremacy can.
When shit like this happens, I think it is time to check our military privilege. Let’s look to another work of fiction, Spider-Man, for a good, closing moral: with great power comes great responsibility.
