The Guardian: Who exactly was Donald Trump appealing to when he called on Monday for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States”? Quite a few people, according to a YouGov poll conducted earlier this year which found that 55% of surveyed Americans had an “unfavorable” opinion of Islam.

Looking more closely at those respondents, Islamophobic sentiments are more common among Americans who are 45 and older, those who are Republican and those who are white.

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Attitudes toward Islam and attitudes toward Muslims should be considered separately – however, studies suggests that the two overlap considerably, as many people fail to distinguish between the two.

In 2014, Pew Research Center published a large study about American attitudes towards individuals of different faiths. Over 3,000 US respondents were asked to rate members of religious groups using a “feeling thermometer” that ranged from 0 to 100: 0 indicated the coldest, most negative possible rating and 100 the warmest, most positive rating. Muslims scored just 40.

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