According to an Ipsos survey conducted by The Daily Beast, 19 percent of Republicans asked had something of a “favorable opinion” of Kim Jong Un. “Liberal” billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer received 17 percent approval from Republicans. Nancy Pelosi received 17 percent approval and racial justice advocate Colin Kaepernick received 18 percent approval from Republicans asked. Just think about that:
- Colin Kaepernick has been critical of the United States’s law enforcement apparatus’s treatment of black people in this country. He has made his views known by first sitting, and then kneeling, during the playing of the National Anthem at football games. He has been effectively whitelisted from his chosen profession for voicing these opinions because the president of the United States—a racist himself, with a long history of being a racist asshole—has applied pressure to the NFL.
- Nancy Pelosi is a U.S. congresswoman happens to be a Democrat. She is, a) not a particularly “leftist” Democrat, and b) not the dictator of a hostile foreign regime.
- Kim Jong Un, for his part, is the son of a brutal dictator; and it has been reported that Jong Un had numerous people executed as part of his take over of the North Korean state after his father’s death in 2011. Up until a couple of months ago, any Republican you asked would have told you Jong Un was a blood-thirsty madman with dreams of wiping the United States away in a nuclear holocaust.
The good news—if you can call it such—is that the majority of people asked didn’t seem to think having celebrities as world leaders was the best idea.
Large majorities of Americans believe that high-level elected officials should have prior government (66%) or management (73%) experience before assuming office. Republicans (75%) and Democrats (74%) alike value prior management experience, but Republicans (49%) are much less likely than Democrats (78%) to value prior government experience. All Americans (18%), including both Democrats (21%) and Republicans (19%), are unlikely to agree that celebrity candidates are good for democracy.
That’s something. Of course, Republicans may just consider dictators to be one of those groups of people with “prior government or management experience.”