Half of Republicans somehow still think Barack Obama is a Muslim

A national poll in the US has found that a majority of Republicans (54 per cent) believe Barack Obama is a Muslim - and only 29 per cent believe he was born in the country.

That is somehow less than the 40 per cent who believe Canadian-born Ted Cruz was born in the United States.

Sanity announcement: President Obama is a practicing Christian and was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on 4 August 1961.

When the same questions were posed to only Donald Trump supporters, the results were even more depressing.

Sixty-six per cent of Trump’s supporters believe that Obama is a Muslim and 61 per cent believe he was not born in the US.

Trump’s supporters represent the largest proportion in line with these beliefs, but they aren’t alone in them.

Only among the supporters of John Kasich, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, and Marco Rubio are there more people who think President Obama was born in the United States than those who do not.

In addition only among the supporters of Christie, Kasich and Bush are there more who believe he is a Christian, not a Muslim.

These misconceptions about Obama are not the first to emerge this week.

You may or may not have seen that the highest peak in North America has been renamed this week, or rather had it’s former name restored.

The newly restored name ‘Denali’, translates as “the high one” in the language of Alaska’s indigenous Athabascan people. The mountain had been known as this prior to 1917.

The mountain’s name has been restored as part of Obama’s campaign promises to Native Americans in 2008.

In response, a meme was shared on Facebook that stipulated that the former Mount McKinley was being renamed Mount Denali because ‘Denali’ means ‘Black Power’ in 'Kenyan'.

Firstly, there is no language called “Kenyan” - Kenya’s two official languages are English and Swahili.

In addition, as Snopes points out, Denali doesn’t mean anything in either language.

In Swahili “black” is “mweusi” and “power” is “nguvu”.

The mountain was given its former name a century ago in honour of the Republican President William McKinley, who was assassinated in 1901.

Donald Trump has, in reaction to the news, promised to change Mount Denali back to Mount McKinley.

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