The Left Thinks Muslims in the U.S. Have it Bad. Really, Really Bad.

A new Rasmussen poll highlights the divergence between left and right on perceptions of who’s persecuted. And wow is it a head-scratcher. From the data, one gets the impression that it’s the allegedly cold-hearted right more alarmed about the plight of religious minorities in the infamously illiberal Muslim world. The left meanwhile is looking inward, at the condition of Muslims in America, and deciding it’s even worse than the condition of Christians in Egypt. Or Algeria. Or Iran. Or Pakistan.

Fifty-six percent (56%) of Democrats, however, believe most Muslims in this country are mistreated, a view shared by only 22% of Republicans and 39% of voters not affiliated with either major party. Fewer Democrats (47%) think most Christians are mistreated in the Islamic world, compared to 76% of GOP voters and 64% of unaffiliateds.

Of course, Pew Research Center among other outlets has long been documenting the general dearth of religious freedom in Muslim-majority countries, with nations like Indonesia, Iran, Egypt, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia routinely popping up on its lists of various illiberalisms around the globe. Add to that the observation via the Witherspoon Institute that “78 percent of Muslim-majority countries have high levels of government restrictions on religious practices, compared with 43 percent of all other countries and 10 percent of Christian countries.”

Muslims in the U.S. aren’t barred or restricted in their proselytization efforts by an explicitly Christian government, nor does the U.S. make conversion to Islam illegal. Muslims in the U.S. aren’t made to get special permission to repair or expand their mosques, and won’t face the crime of “contempt for Christianity” for disseminating material critical of or mocking the religion. In countless ways it’s not even remotely comparable, the situation of Muslims in the U.S. and Christians (and other assorted religious minorities including Jews, barely) in the Muslim world.

So why the perception otherwise on the left? Apart from the same ideological makeup of progressives that give us celebrations of the hijab and even (a somewhat amended, supposedly) sharia law by the left’s rising stars, there’s simple saliency. Christian persecution is going on over there, Muslim persecution in the U.S. – to the degree it exists – is happening over here, and the American media is unsurprisingly focused on domestic matters. While true, the left has historically prided itself on looking outward too, not just inward, and resisted the urge to give in to American parochialism. “We are not the center of the universe,” “first world problems,” and so forth. I reckon that with the identity politics of the left going into overdrive upon repugnant old white man Donald Trump, er, grabbing the Oval Office, that global orientation is being jettisoned for a crude anything-that-makes-traditional-America-squirm stance. If they’re into it – documenting the unending travesty of justice occurring in the Muslim world – then we’re out of it.  Concomitant with this approach is an unfortunate head-in-the-sand attitude regarding a certain religion that leaves liberals, classical and otherwise, well, scratching their head.