Scholars writing in the "resource curse" literature have long argued that oil wealth leads to autocracy. A number of theories have been offered to explain this effect: (1) oil helps leaders to buy off democratic demands via generous distribution, (2) oil leads to the expansion of a security apparatus that facilitates repression of democratic movements, and (3) oil leads to higher incomes but not necessarily promotes social capital. Yet, entirely missing from this literature is an understanding about how oil affects citizen's attitudes about democracy. In this paper, I argue that citizens in oil-rich countries should hold more negative attitudes about democracy compared to citizens in countries without oil. This is the result of two causal factors. First, I argue that citizens in oil-rich countries are more likely to perceive their government as an effective and generous distributor, which dampens their criticism of the government as a whole. Second, given the volatility associated with oil dependence, citizens in oil-rich countries should value economic security and remain skeptical about turning over a stable authoritarian bargain in favor of an uncertain but liberalized political future. I test my argument using survey data from the Arab Barometer, which comprises 14 countries in the region over the period 2006 to 2019. I demonstrate that people in the Middle East's oil-rich countries tend to hold more negative attitudes about democracy compared to people in the oil-poor countries. People in the Middle East's oil-rich states are more likely to believe the following: (1) economic performance is weak in a democratic system, (2) democratic systems are indecisive and full of problems, (3) democratic systems are not effective at maintaining order and stability, (4) a democratic system is not better than other political systems, (5) the citizens of their country are not prepared for democracy, and (6) democracy is inappropriate for their country. These attitudes hold irrespective of how rich or poor their country is, how democratic or autocratic it currently is, how stable or unstable it was during the Arab Spring, or the extent to which a person believes their government is actually democratic. In order to shed light on the effects of the Arab Spring, I compare democratic attitudes in two countries that saw governmental crises: Algeria and Jordan. Public attitudes about democracy have remained more negative in oil-rich Algeria than in oil-poor Jordan.