Could Harry Potter stop Donald Trump Becoming US President?

Potter Readers are Liberals as well as Muggles, Survey Finds!

♦ Parliament has buggered off for the hols is in recess, so The Independent is hard up for stories (except for the daily “Corbyn Drinks Blood of Children” one, of course) and has revealed to us the results of a (very small) survey: The more Harry Potter books a person reads, the lower their opinion of The Donald.

A study carried out by the University of Pennsylvania, where people obviously have too much time on their hands, seems to indicate that the boy wizard might swing the election for Hillary “Drone-Strike Thatcher” Clinton.

The paper is being published by PS: Political Science and Politics, and claims Americans fans of the franchise are more likely to dislike Trump, possibly due to the franchise’s “opposition to authoritarianism” and promotion of diversity, tolerance and acceptance, even when controlled for predictors such as age, education and political leanings.

Titled Harry Potter and the Deathly Donald (see what they did there?), it is based on a survey of 1,142 Americans – in the Non-Potterverse, there are about 322 million Americans – who were asked their views on a range of issues, including The Donald.

Professor Diana Mutz from the Annenberg School for Communication discovered the magical formula for expelliarmus Donaldius is

More Harry Potter read =  Lower opinion of Trump

On a scale of 0-100, this sometimes reduces their opinion of The Donald by up to 3 points per book read.

“This may seem small but for someone who has read all seven books, the total impact could lower their estimate of Trump by 18 points out of 100,” Mutz said in a press release. “The size of this effect is on par with the impact of party identification on attitudes towards gays and Muslims. Because Trump’s political views are widely viewed as opposed to the values espoused in the Harry Potter series, exposure to the Potter series may play an influential role in influencing how Americans respond to Donald Trump.”

“Perhaps most importantly, these findings raise the hope that Harry Potter can stop the Deathly Donald and make America great again in the eyes of the world, just as Harry did by ridding the wizard world of Voldemort,” she said. Hmmm…

In related news, a controlling stake in Barnes and Noble was bought by one H Clinton.

The opinions in this article are not those of the publishers, or necessarily any civilised person, anywhere, ever.

Peter Mann