Toxic trope destroyed as Muslims found to back democracy more than others

A new poll conducted by Opinium has wrecked the far-right myth that Muslims in the UK and US are determined to impose Sharia law on everyone else. Opinium shared the results with Zeteo, who report:

The survey of 1,000 American Muslims and 500 British Muslims, conducted by Opinium for the Concordia Forum, a transatlantic thinktank and networking group, in October 2025, measured views on democracy, equality, and the intersection of religion and country.

85% of Muslims across Britain and the North of Ireland voted for democracy when asked:

Do you believe democracy is the best system of government for the country you live in or do you think another system would be better?

This compares to 71% of the general population giving the same answer to the question. In the United States, the figures were 81% for Muslims and 67% for the general population. Opinium asked a range of other questions too, including querying Muslims as to whether they had:

…changed [their] routine or avoided certain places due to concerns of anti-Muslim hate or violence.

Survey also finds Muslims are changing lifestyle to avoid threat of violence

Alarmingly, only 15% said they never change their routine. 32% of UK respondents said they “often or “always” make adjustments due to concerns of violence. This fear is rational given the huge rise in Islamophobia in recent years. Tell Mama, a group that measures anti-Muslim prejudice, said in February 2025 that cases of hatred towards practitioners of the faith were at an all-time high. They reported:

…a large rise in the categorisation of ‘threatening behaviour’ in street based cases. This amounts to a 715% increase in such cases between 2023 and 2024.

They also describe a:

…surge in rhetoric that falsely portrays Muslims as terrorists or terrorist sympathisers.

This has accelerated during the Gaza genocide, amidst rhetoric from so-called ‘Israel’ and its supporters that cast the Zionist entity as being at the forefront of a battle between a supposedly civilised ‘Judeo-Christian’ axis and a regressive Muslim world. The whole concept of a single Judeo-Christian ideology is a myth, just as much as the ‘clash of civilisations’ narrative.

US political scientist Samuel Huntington concocted the latter concept as a cynical ploy to unite the US against an external enemy. This too was driven by his bigoted fears that a diverse US population would end up internally divided. Huntingdon said:

There can be no true friends without true enemies. Unless we hate what we are not, we cannot love what we are.

Our current ruling class are intent on ensuring we have someone to hate, to distract from the fact they continue to rob us blind. Muslims are still the main fall guy for this tactic. US president Donald Trump attempted to maintain the pretence that Muslims are subverting democracy when he said:

I look at London, where you have a terrible mayor, terrible, terrible mayor, and it’s been changed, it’s been so changed. Now they want to go to sharia law. But you are in a different country, you can’t do that.

This sort of shite seems to be having an effect. A 2024 Hope Not Hate survey of Conservative Party members:

…found that 52% believed parts of European cities were under sharia law and were no-go areas for non-Muslims.

Billionaires are the true haters of democracy

In reality, the people who have the greatest disdain for democracy are authoritarian politicians like Trump and the billionaire class they serve. Trump famously goaded his supporters into an insurrection in 2021, and has ranted to his military about the need to purge an “enemy within”. The brownshirts of his personal paramilitary force ICE have been murdering dissenters around the US.

Billionaires like Peter Thiel loathe the notion that his ilk ought to be constrained by the popular will. He has talked about a desire:

…to find an escape from politics in all its forms.

He also declared:

I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.

This, of course, is a conception of liberty in which ‘freedom for the pike is death for the minnows‘. Ultra-rich paedo Jeffrey Epstein viewed most people with total disdain, pondering that:

Maybe climate change is a good way of dealing with overpopulation.

His eugenicist fantasies included vile breeding programs to populate the world with his own supposedly superior genetic material. Elon Musk also has a similar disdain for democracy, illustrated by the fact he is a literal Nazi. He likewise shares Epstein’s belief in diluting the world’s gene pool with clones of his deeply flawed self.

Through their overt belief that they are uniquely qualified to rule, these people show us who are the true opponents of democracy. In the case of billionaires, despite never being elected, they reckon they have the right to determine the future of the species. If we want democracy to survive, it’s not Muslims we need worry about — it’s concentrations of extreme wealth and the economic system that makes it possible.

Featured image via MiddleEastEye