Source: Reason
by Eric Boehm
“President Donald Trump’s push to seize Greenland might be the least popular idea in American political history. Is that hyperbole? If so, that’s only because reliable and fast public polling is a relatively recent development within our 250-year experiment in self-governance. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Wednesday found a staggering 4 percent of Americans favor the idea of seizing Greenland with military force. Among Republicans, the idea is actually twice as popular: 8 percent say taking the island is a ‘good idea.’ … do you know how hard it is to get such a minuscule percentage on a public opinion survey? Secondly, there’s the Lizardman’s Constant. That’s a term coined by Scott Alexander in 2013 to describe the surprisingly consistent finding that 4 percent of people will say they believe utterly outlandish things when polled — things like ‘human-sized lizards wearing skin suits control the world.'” (01/15/26)