Buddhists Support Bernie Sanders Overwhelmingly 68.5% Bernie 18.6% Hillary

[GeorgiaPeanuts]

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/americanbuddhist/2016/04/buddhists-for-bernie-a-breakdown-of-our-march-us-presidential-poll.html

Finally, the question we’ve all been waiting for. This shows an increase in support for Bernie Sanders over last month’s poll and corresponding decrease in support for Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump has increased significantly in support as well, with 13 supporters vs 5 last month (Marco Rubio received 7 votes last month and Ben Carson received 2, so it is possible some of their supporters have gone to Trump). Ted Cruz is holding at 5 supporters. John Kasich has the highest proportional increase for the month, with 6 supporters this month vs 2 last month.


Jill Stein had four supporters in this poll, actually down one from last month despite being added to the list of possible choices. Libertarian Gary Johnson was given four write-ins this month, so he will be added to the list of names in next month’s poll. Gloria La Riva was written in once (her name was misspelled by the respondent, hence the mistake on some of the images below).

[DamnYankeeInHouston]

1. Kindness.

[virtualobserver]

2. I would like to meet one of the Buddhists for Trump

[In_The_Wind]

4. That's never gonna happen.

[Recursion]

5. He's the third most popular candidate among Buddhists, this says (nt)

[In_The_Wind]

8. There must be a mistake in that poll. The Buddhist I know would not endorse Trump.

[Recursion]

9. Americans have a weird distorted view of Buddhism, I find

A lot of Americans simply can't believe that, for example, violent Buddhist extremists have killed tens of thousands of people in Sri Lanka and Burma.

The highest-profile Buddhists are middle class white Americans who follow an east Asian school of Buddhism, but the vast majority of Buddhists in America are south and southeast Asian immigrants and their descendants, whose school of Buddhism has very little to do with either Zen or Tibetan Buddhism.

[In_The_Wind]

10. Ah. Thank you for that explanation.

It almost crushed my vision of the peaceful Buddha.

[renate]

14. I love that

I'm guessing that that's not a word-for-word teaching, since I've never heard it said like that before, but I sure love it. Thanks!

[In_The_Wind]

15. And, I love this

https://zmm.mro.org/


We may say things a bit differently today but it creates the same peace in our heart.

[ZombieHorde]

7. Me too.

Some Buddhists are pranksters, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were just messing with the pollers, but maybe not.

[synergie]

21. Click the link, it has that breakdown. The majority of the respondents and the ones

who overwhelmingly chose Bernie were self-identified white males, followed by white females, and it's a pretty small sample size. But they do break it all down, and explain the categories they offered etc. Interesting, not terribly informative, but interesting nonetheless.

[ZombieHorde]

25. They only list white and Asian, both of whom unsurprisingly chose Sanders,

but I wonder why there isn't a breakdown of nonwhite and non Asian people. Did they happen to only ask whites and Asians?

[synergie]

28. It was just patheos users who visit that site. But they asked if people had been

raised in the religion and if they had converted and etc. I think there might not have been enough people (it's a VERY small sample), who had picked other races.

They broke it down pretty well considering how few respondents they had.

[liberal_at_heart]

3. Bernie is compassionate and truly cares about every human life and the environment.

That is what Buddha teaches us, to be interconnected and compassionate.

[synergie]

22. That's nice that you believe that but his gun position and the whole Sierra Blanca

thing kinda challenge that notion that he's some current day incarnation of the Buddha. He needs to learn a bit more about the teachings of Gautama.

[Recursion]

6. Curious how much of Patheos's sample are import Buddhists

Rather than immigrant Buddhists which, despite their lower visibility, are significantly more numerous in the US.

[Ichingcarpenter]

11. Donald explains

[Bonobo]

12. Yes, but is he a "DEMOCRAT"!?!?!? nt

[NWCorona]

18. He was allowed to run as one

[senz]

19. LOL! Thank you!!

Have been fed up for so long with that hollow, off-the-mark accusation, laughing at it is a much-needed release.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

16. I support Bernie and Jill Stein as a Buddhist.

[liberal_at_heart]

17. Me too.

[synergie]

20. So 317 Buddhists who post on patheos speak for everyone now?

[senz]

23. My Buddhist cousin, raised Republican, has been feeling the Bern

and made the first political donation of his life, last summer, to Bernie. Happy surprise for me.

As for other religions, any Christian who reads the Gospels, pays attention to Jesus's actual teachings (vs. church dogma), and knows the differences among the candidates, would have to choose Bernie. I could see naive, uninformed Christians choosing Hill in the mistaken belief that Democrats are still the party of economic justice and Hill's just a nice lady who wants world peace and good things for all the little people.

[MisterP]

24. heck, mainstream dogmas' trajectories go right to Sanders

we don't even have a mainstream in US religion since the 70s (when the country's owners made a coup in the Southern Baptists)

[Odin2005]

26. Am Buddhist Sanders supporter, can confirm.

[George II]

27. Is there a point to this, W?