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Tag Archives: public opinion

Im-Politic: Welcome Polling News for Immigration Realism

13 Saturday Aug 2022

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Uncategorized

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Biden border crisis, Center for Immigration Studies, Democrats, Gallup, Im-Politic, Immigration, independents, polls, public opinion, Republicans, YouGov

Two sets of poll results sure don’t make a trend. But they’re sure more convincing than one set of poll results. So recent surveys from Gallup and YouGov could signal an encouraging turning point in U.S. public opinion on immigration issues – and one brought about by the epic failure of the Biden administration’s Open Borders-friendly statements and actions.

Gallup’s findings were posted on August 8. The headline development? The share of American adults contacted between July 5 and 26 believing that immigration levels should be decreased stood at 38 percent. That’s the highest level since June, 2016 and up from 31 percent last June. Moreover, the annual percentage- point increase was the biggest since 2008 and 2009 – when the economy was mired in the Great Recession that followed the global financial crisis.

The share of respondents who wanted immigration levels to be decreased or remain the same (69 percent) was also the highest since June, 2016 (72 percent) and up from 66 percent last year.

By an overwhelming 70 percent to 24 percent, Gallup found that Americans agree that “on the whole” immigration is a “good thing” rather than a “bad thing.” But even though this question seems to focus on immigration views in the abstract, with no relation to current conditions, the “good thing” share of responses fell from 75 percent last year, and the “bad thing” responses rose from 21 percent.

In addition, the “good thing” responses represented the lowest percentage of the total since 2014 (63 percent) and the “bad thing” responses the highest since 2016. And the 46 percentage-point margin enjoyed by the “good thing” responses is a drop from last year’s 54 percentage points and the smallest since 2014’s 30 percentage points.

Also striking in the Gallup results: It’s no surprise that the 69 percent of respondents identifying as Republican wanting less immigration is by far the highest total since Gallup began asking these questions (surpassing 2009’s 61 percent). It’s also no great surprise that independent identifiers agreeing with this stance has rebounded lately a bit to 33 percent (though still far below its high of 51 percent in 2002.

But it’s really surprising, especially given their loathing of immigration restrictionist Donald Trump and the growing influence of progessives in the party, that the share of Democratic identifiers supporting less immigration is up from 12 percent last year to 17 percent this year.

The YouGov survey was conducted in late July, and reported that by a 35 percent to 31 percent margin, Americans believed that immigration “makes the country” “worse off” instead of “better off.” According to Andrew Arthur of the Center for Immigration Studies, that’s a huge turnabout from what the same outfit found in September, 2019. Then, “better off” won by 43 percent to 19 percent.

At the same time, this latest YouGov survey found that 31 percent of Americans support increasing legal immigration versus 22 percent who want it reduced. Gallup didn’t draw the (critical) legal/illegal distinction. I don’t know how these results have changed over time. But the sheer size of the discrepancy indicates that even if American opinions are moving their way, it’s still far from certain that restrictionists (who I of course consider to be the adults in the room) have won the day.

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Following Up: A Learning Curve on Ukraine Polling

19 Saturday Mar 2022

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Our So-Called Foreign Policy

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CBS News, No-Fly Zone, nuclear war, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Pew Research Center, polls, public opinion, Quinnipiac University poll, Reuters/Ipsos, Russia, The Wall Street Journal, Ukraine, Ukraine invasion, Ukraine-Russia war, YouGovAmerica

We’re getting some clarity from the – always imperfect – polls on whether Americans support direct U.S. military involvement in the Ukraine war, and the news is mostly good. Specifically, strong majorities currently reject “boots on the ground” and even the more limited no-fly-zone proposal for fear of risking nuclear war with Russia.

In other words, we know more than we did a little more than a week ago, when the Reuters news organization and the Ipsos polling concern asked respondents their views on the no fly zone, but didn’t mention the nuclear war thing in their question. That’s about as smart as asking someone whether they’d take medicine A to cure disease B without mentioning that medicine A could cause an even worse disease C.

Even weirder, the Reuters article describing the survey’s results actually pointed out this crucial omission. Just for the record, though, Reuters and Ipsos weren’t the only examples of polls completely ignoring vital context, as this YouGoveAmerica post makes clear.

But it seems that pollsters are displaying a learning curve – even in the foreign policy field in which, as the above linked RealityChek post shows, they’ve been especially clueless.

For instance, the YouGovAmerica outfit followed up its first ditzy survey on the No Fly Zone with another that – unlike its initial soundings – defined the idea (without naming it) rather than asking if people support it “without a definition.” What a concept! And once respondents were presented with the fact that American pilots shooting at Russian military planes, support fell support fell substantially.

A similar YouGov exercise for CBS News yielded much more opposition to the No Fly Zone. When it was simply mentioned by name, it enjoyed 59 percent to 41 percent backing. When respondents were told this would mean “U.S. forces might have to engage Russian aircraft, and be considered an act of war by Russia,” the results more than flipped. Sixty two percent opposed the idea and only 38 percent favored it.

Earlier this week, the Pew Research Center found that Americans opposed the United States “taking military action” in Ukraine “if it risks a nuclear conflict with Russia” by 62 percent to 35 percent – a margin much wider than that in the YouGovAmerica poll.

Also this week, the polling center at Quinnipiac (Conn.) University mentioned that a No Fly Zone “would lead NATO countries into a war with Russia.” Opponents prevailed over supporters by 54 percent to 32 percent.

Interestingly, much more public caution was displayed concerning the question of whether the United States “should do whatever it can to help Ukraine, even if it means risking a direct war between the U.S. and Russia” or “do whatever it can to help Ukraine, without risking “such a direct war. The don’t-risk-war option won out by 75 percent to 17 percent.

I’ve found less information on an early March Wall Street Journal poll (including on the phrasing of the questions), but it, too, revealed meager support for direct U.S. military involvement in Ukraine. Only 29 percent of respondents backed the N0 Fly Zone, and only ten percent would “send U.S. troops” to the country.

So why did I say at the outset that the polling news was only “mostly good”? Because in my view, the shares of Americans reportedly willing to risk nuclear war over Ukraine are still alarmingly high – in the 30s and 40s percents, except for the Wall Street Journal poll. It makes me wonder whether the mere mention of nuclear war is enough to show the full potential magnitude of these positions. Maybe respondents should have to watch, for example, this movie, too.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: U.S. Ukraine Policy’s Choices are Anything but Obvious Morally

03 Thursday Mar 2022

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Our So-Called Foreign Policy

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debt, deficits, economic aid, guerilla war, military aid, Modern Monetary Theory, morality, national interests, nuclear war, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, public opinion, Russia, sanctions, sovereignty, Ukraine, Ukraine invasion, Ukraine-Russia war, vital interests

I’ve been so concerned about the Russian invasion of Ukraine (and the preceding expansion of the west’s North Atlantic Treaty Organization deep into Eastern Europe) boosting the risks of nuclear war that I haven’t had time to write about some important details that should be considered as Americans weigh a response, and that have influenced my own thinking. In one of my very first RealityChek posts, I actually presented many of these ideas, which concern the role of morality in U.S. foreign policy. But they’re worth reviewing to show how they relate to the momentous – and morally horrific – events of the last week.

Most important:  As a sovereign country, the United States has an inalienable right to respond to this or any other foreign challenge or opportunity however its political system wishes. It doesn’t need to answer to its NATO treaty allies. It doesn’t need to answer to the European Union, the United Nations, or any foreign government or group of governments. It certainly doesn’t need to answer to gauzier supposed realities like “the intenational community” or “global public opinion.” And it certainly does mean that the American political system has an equally inalienable and absolute right to define moral behavior.   

In other words, sovereignty means that the government in question gets the last word (assuming it can enforce its will), and the high degree of security and economic well-being enjoyed by the United States – by virtue of geography, rich resource endowments, economic strength, technological prowess and a host of other advantages – means that the U.S. government has tremendous latitude in choosing what that last word is.

As I’ve argued (e.g., here) joining the fighting would be a choice that’s not only foolish (because Ukraine’s fate has never been seen as vital by American leaders o the public even during the Cold War decades when it was under the Soviet thumb) but possibly suicidal (because it could result in a direct conflict with an enemy possessing a big nuclear arsenal, including weapons that can reach the entire U.S. homeland).

At the same time, if the American people – the ultimate decision-makers in the national political system – want to go to war over Ukraine, despite the risks, and if they make their decision clear through mass protests or any other means, their sovereignty would make that choice entirely legitimate – though IMO borderline insane given the completely marginal self-interest involved.

Thankfully, the public appears to recognize this whoppingly lopsided risk-reward ratio.  And we know this not just becaue  polls have consistently shown opposition to “boots on the ground.” (See, e.g., here and here, although the level of support reported in both were alarmingly high.) We also know it because U.S. leaders seem to understand this public opinion – as President Biden has emphatically ruled out this course, his administration has nixed a similar proposal of enforcing no-fly zones against Russian aircraft over Ukraine, and nearly all Members of Congress have shied away from these options, too.

But a host of lesser responses have also either begun or are being actively discussed as well.  They include providing more economic and military assistance to the Ukrainians both as they’re still putting up a fight, or after a Russian victory – when Moscow could well face a large-scale guerilla war – tightening the economic screws further on Vladimir Putin, his cronies, his entire regime, and his economy; and deploying more U.S. forces to the Eastern European members of NATO to reduce the odds that Putin will move against them.

I’m personally fine with any or all of them in principle – although I do wonder from a logistics standpoint how military supplies will be able to reach the Ukrainians once the Russians are guarding all the borders, and about what dangers could develop from convoys with such supplies approaching territory Moscow controls now or probably will in the coming days and weeks. I’ve also expressed reservations about greatly expanding the U.S. military presence on the territory of the easternmost American allies. 

For the purposes of this post, however, my own views on these matters aren’t what matter. What I’m especially concerned with are three emerging, related, and disturbingly neglected ways in which policy and morality intersect in the Uktaine crisis.

The first I mentioned briefly yesterday – the disconnect between, on the one hand, the ringing calls heard throughout the country (including from President) to “stand with Ukraine” because it’s demanded by simple decency and morality, and on the other hand, and the strong determination of U.S. leaders to shield the domestic economy from the consequences of economic sanctions, above all in the energy sector – much less to avoid actual combat. To me, the morality of such positions is dubious at best. They sound like the classically hypocritical exhortation, “Let’s you and him fight.” And they strongly suggest that expressions of support like this are more about feeling good about oneself than about decisively helping the Ukrainians.

The second involves resource allocation decisions. Some of the Ukraine support steps that will be taken by Washington, like increased military and economic assistance, will require more spending, and more of American leaders’ time and energy.

But the spending proposals so far haven’t been accompanied by any proposals to raise taxes to finance them in the here and now. As a result, these expenditures will add to an already mammoth national debt. If you believe that school of thinking holding that such debts and the deficits that balloon them are No Big Deal economically, there’s no moral problem. If you don’t buy this Modern Monetary Theory, then more deficit spending adds to a national debt that already shapes up as a major burden on future generations (who of course can’t vote). To me that seems as morally problemmatic as the “Let’s you and him fight”-type policies.

The third moral difficulty – which is still more potential than emerging – is also a product of devoting more energy and resources to Ukraine without raising taxes or taking on more debt: This policy could mean less energy and fewer resources devoted to pressing domestic needs with their own big moral dimension. What’s the moral rationale for those taking a back seat, to whatever degree, especially when you consider that solving domestic problems – and doing meaningful, lasting good – is almost always easier than solving overseas problems? That’s because, however challenging those domestic problems, Americans have much more control over them.

All these moral quandaries are further and vastly complicated by another consideration widely ignored in morality-based calls to Do Something or Do More on the Ukraine crisis: No one is more of an expert on morality than anyone else – whether they’re rich or poor, highly educated or barely literate, profoundly eloquent or utterly inarticulate, famous or obscure, or whether they pound tables more vigorously than others or choke up more in official debates or on the air, or whether they’re clerics or laypeople.

If I thought Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threatened genuinely vital American interests – that is, that it endangers national physical survival or political independence, or major, long-term impoverishment – I’d urge sweeping aside these moral questions for reasons that should be obvious except to committed pacifists. I suspect most other Americans would, too.

But to an important extent, in the name of morality, backing is being voiced for U.S. Ukraine policy measures that could gravely and even fatally jeopardize American security or well-being in meaningful ways even though that embattled country isn’t vital.  So for both practical and moral reasons, it’s urgent to examine these moral dilemmas much more searchingly than has been the case, and for the public not to be intimidated or stampeded by the loudest or the most passionate or the most seemingly authoritative or the most widely promoted or covered voices they hear.        

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Pointless Polls on Ukraine

26 Saturday Feb 2022

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Our So-Called Foreign Policy

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Associated Press, Biden, Gallup, National Opinion Research Center, NATO, North Atlantic treaty Organization, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, polls, public opinion, Putin, Russia, Ukraine, YouGovAmerica

Here are two of the weirdest polling releases I’ve seen in a long time.  And both concern the Russian invasion of Ukraine – not exactly a trivial issue.

The first is a Gallup survey from yesterday with findings on American views on the Ukraine conflict that (unwittingly, it seems) leaves the subject more mysterious than ever.

Gallup reports that, just before Russia invaded Ukraine, “52% of Americans [saw] the conflict between Russia and Ukraine as a critical threat to U.S. vital interests. That’s a change from 2015, after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula, when less than half of U.S. adults, 44%, thought it posed that serious a threat.”

Keep in mind that “vital” literally means needed to ensure the physical survival, or at least the independence of the country. And even if respondents didn’t have that particular definition in mind, surely they equated the term with first-order importance. In either case, you’d think logically that at least a sizable portion of those viewing the Ukraine conflict as a “vital threat” would support a U.S. military response.

But in this survey, Gallup never even posed the question. And its additional queries created even more confusion. Chiefly, a big plurality (47 percent) favored keeping the U.S. commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) “where it is now” – even though the challenges facing the alliance obviously have grown dramatically.

Another 18 percent did favor an increase to the commitment. But the same share of respondents wanted it decreased. And 13 percent supported “withdrawing entirely.” “Go figure” seems to be what Gallup is suggesting.

The second bizarro poll was conducted by the Associated Press and the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. Between February 18 and February 21 (the day Russian leader Vladimir Putin ordered troops to enter eastern Ukraine), these pollsters asked American adults whether they thought the United States should play a “major,” “minor,” or “no role” in the situation between Russia and Ukraine.” What on earth does that mean?

For the record, 26 percent backed a major role, 52 percent a minor role, and twenty percent no role. That sure sounds like strong opposition to a step as dramatic and fraught with peril as joining a conflict with a nuclear-armed superpower. But these results say absolutely nothing about what kind of role should or shouldn’t be played, which matters a lot because the range is so wide among sending troops, expressing rhetorical support, and all the options in between. And why ignore the troops question in the first place?

Not that all pollsters have sidestepped the issue. The YouGovAmerica firm conducted a survey for The Economist of U.S. adult citizens earlier this month – between February 5 and 8. It found that by a 55 percent to 13 percent, respondents considered it a “bad idea” versus a “good idea” to “send soldiers to Ukraine to fight Russian soldiers.” Fully a third weren’t sure.

But even this survey wasn’t devoid of weirdness. Chiefly, YouGov asked about the option of “Sending soldiers to Ukraine to provide help, but not to fight Russian soldiers.” Granted, the actual Ukraine war was still a hypothetical at that point. But what gave the pollsters the idea that this option was remotely realistic? Or prudent, given the tendency of large-scale fighting to become larger scale fighting, and embroil nearby regions and populations. (The public was split almost exactly into thirds among the “good idea,” “bad idea” and “not sure” alternatives.)

Politicians are fond of bragging that they don’t make policy based on polls. At least when it comes to the war and peace decisions presented by the Ukraine conflict, these surveys make clear that’s something to be grateful for.

Glad I Didn’t Say That! Biden Does and Doesn’t Believe the Polls

20 Thursday Jan 2022

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Glad I Didn't Say That!

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Biden, Biden press conference, Glad I Didn't Say That!, politics, polls, public opinion

“Q Do you need to be more realistic and scale down [your] priorities in order to get something passed?

“THE PRESIDENT:  No, I don’t think so…. your networks and others.  You’ve spent a lot of time, which I’m glad you do, polling this data, determining where the — what the American people’s attitudes are, et cetera.

“The American people overwhelmingly agree with me on prescription drugs.  They overwhelmingly agree with me on the cost of education.  They overwhelmingly agree with me on early education.  They overwhel- — and go on the list — on — on childcare.”

—President Biden, January 19, 2022

“Q [H]ow do you plan to win back moderates and independents who cast a ballot for you in 2020 but, polls indicate, aren’t happy with the way you’re doing your job now?

“THE PRESIDENT:  I don’t believe the polls.” 

President Biden, January 19, 2022

 

(Source: “Remarks by President Biden in Press Conference,” Briefing Room, Speeches and Remarks, January, 19, 2022, Remarks by President Biden in Press Conference | The White House )

Im-Politic: Latinos Flocking to a (Still Trump-ian) Republican Party

21 Tuesday Dec 2021

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Uncategorized

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Axios-Ipsos Poll, Biden, Democrats, Donald Trump, election 2016, election 2020, election 2022, election 2024, exit polls, Glenn Youngkin, Hispanics, Im-Politic, Immigration, Latinos, NPR-Marist Poll, Pew Research Center, polls, public opinion, Republicans, The Wall Street Journal, Virginia governor's race

Remember all those those charges that former President Donald Trump made clear from the very beginning of his 2016 presidential campaign that he was an anti-Latino bigot, and the predictions that any political success he enjoyed would doom Republican chances of winning support from this increasingly important group of voters?

Apparently, many Latino voters themselves don’t. Or they’ve concluded that Trump and now dominant Republican views on sensible controls on immigration matter less to them than views on other issues. Or that they actually like Trump and the Republicans on some combination of these subjects – including immigration. Or that maybe the Republican positions aren’t terrific, but that what the Democrats have stood for lately is a non-starter.

That’s the message being sent lately by several recent polls on Latino political views that could decisively shape American politics for the foreseeable future.

First, though, some context. There’s little doubt now that four years of Trump-ism wound up boosting the former President’s support among Latinos, now further shrinking it. In 2016, Trump won 28 percent of their presidential vote. In 2020, this figure had grown to 32 percent according to the eixt polls. (This subsequent study pegs his 2020 total at 38 percent.)  And of course, in some key states, the exit polls showed, his 2020 performance was far better – notably Florida (46 percent) and Texas (41 percent). So the racism and xenophobia charges were showing signs of flopping while throughout Trump’s term in office.

Even so, the results of a Wall Street Journal survey conducted in the second half of November came as a major shock. They showed that if Trump was running for the White House against President Biden today, he’d lose by only 44 percent to 43 percent among Latino voters. And they said they’d be even split at 37 percent in their votes for Democratic and Republican Congressional candidates.

As noted in this analysis, the poll’s sample size was very small, so serious doubts in its accuracy are justified. But similar results have been reported elsewhere. Yesterday, notably, National Public Radio and Marist College released a survey showing that just 33 percent of Latino adults approved of President Biden’s performance in office, versus 65 percent who disapproved. These Biden Latino numbers were worse than his ratings from American adults as a whole (41 percent approving and 55 percent disapproving).

Moreover, only 11 percent of Latino adults “strongly approved” of Mr. Biden’s presidency so far, versus 17 percent of U.S. adults overall, and when it came to strong disapproval, 52 percent of Latinos marked that column compared with 44 percent of the total national adult population.

Nor does the evidence stop there that the longer Mr. Biden has been in office, the less Latinos like his perfomance. As this Washington Post column reminds, “In late May, Biden’s job approval among Hispanics averaged 60 percent, with a net approval margin of 32, a bit larger than his vote margin the prior year.”

Biden backers and Democrats can point to a new Axios-Ipsos survey reporting that “The Democratic Party enjoyed huge advantages over the Republican Party when Latino respondents were asked which party represents or cares about …..” But after that ellipsis comes the finding that “those advantages evaporated when it came to the economy and crime.”

Democrats own a clear edge among Latinos on one major issue, though: the CCP Virus pandemic. According to the Axios-Ipsos results “respondents were much more likely to say Democrats were doing a good job of handling COVID-19 as a health challenge — 37% to 11% for Republicans, with another 17% saying both are doing a good job.” 

But Axios-Ipsos has been a major outlier lately, as made clear in this analysis that looks not only at this year’s polls but the Virginia gubernatorial election, which saw victorious Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin actually win the state’s Latino vote.  The conventional wisdom seems to hold that Youngkin prevailed in large measure because he held Trump at arm’s length. But in light of all the other survey results, maybe that’s wishful Mainstream Media thinking?      

It’s still a long way even to the 2022 Congressional elections, much less the 2024 presidential race. But unless the President and his party can turn their sagging fortunes around, it looks like they’re rapidly running out of time with Latinos – who are increasingly flocking to a Republican Party still strongly influenced by Donald Trump.  

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Why the Public Knows Best

29 Sunday Nov 2020

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Our So-Called Foreign Policy

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Alexis de Tocqueville, Barack Obama, Democracy in America, Financial Times, globalism, Joe Biden, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, public opinion, Trump

Since the French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville came out in 1835 with his classic Democracy in America, insightful foreign analysts have used their outsiders’ perspective to help Americans themselves learn much about their own country.

The Financial Times‘ new editorial about the Never Trump-y globalist approach to foreign policy sure to be taken by a Biden administration continues this tradition – however unwittingly. In the British newspaper’s enthusiasm for a return to a pre-Trump U.S. international strategy, it valuably reminds Americans of how far that globalism has taken these American foreign policy traditionalists from the objectives that should always make up the nation’s overriding priority in world affairs.

The editorial contains the usual mindless paeans to content-free “multilateralism, free trade and an active American role around the world. That is, it regurgitates the idea that America’s best bet for maximal security and prosperity lies in pushing practices and positions that in the end are nothing more than means (in other words, tools, or tactics) that may or may not be useful in the kinds of circumstances that ultimately require countries to conduct foreign policies in the first place – those where a valued objective needs to be achieved.

But what really stands out about the article is its inadvertant acknowledgement that the agenda of the globalist President-elect and his establishmentarian team is not only highly unpopular with the public, but rightly so.

It’s become standard operating procedure for foreign policy professionals and self-appointed thought leaders to bemoan Everyday Americans’ reluctance to recognize the importance of globalism’s devotion to (quoting from the editorial) “restoring US leadership,” playing “global policeman,” and the like, and here the Financial Times writers don’t disappoint.

Much more unusual is their acknowledgement that there exists a “perceived disconnect between the Washington view of US interests and middle America’s more immediate concerns for its physical and economic security.”

A longtime hallmark of globalism has been to equate the two – and insist, in fact, that preserving that physical and economic security simply isn’t possible without globalism’s characteristic energetic international engagement in every dimension imaginable.

To be sure, the editorial’s use of the word “perceived” signals its belief that any such disconnect exists only in the minds of the uninformed or the shortsighted. But its use of the phrase “more immediate” inadvertantly indicates that the disconnect has a basis in reality. For although this wording doesn’t flatly deny the linkage, it carries the suggestion that the nation’s physical and economic security can be achieved to a significant, and even for the time being, an adequate extent without assuming all of globalism’s labors.

Globalists can still (and no doubt will) maintain that, even if true, this minimalist version of success can’t last indefinitely without completing more ambitious tasks – specifically, eliminating the very sources of threats to that American physical and economic security. To which critics of globalism can and should reply that this challenge is so formidable, and therefore costly and risky, that its pursuit risks turning the utopian into an enemy of the good.

Further, given how cloudy the personal crystal balls of even the most brilliant globalists undoubtedly are, and therefore how unpredictable many future challenges and opportunities will inevitably be, a more modest strategy of coping, reacting, muddling through, and avoiding “stupid stuff” (an unusually sound bit of non-globalist advice from globalist former President Barack Obama) logically makes the most sense – and doubly so for a country like the United States that’s already blessed with the kinds of strengths and advantages that can enable a low-risk, low-reward foreign policy to deliver results that are eminently acceptable, especially compared with many of the alternatives.

A final theoretical reason to pursue globalist foreign policies might be called the spiritual case – condemning the low-risk, low-reward alternative as utterly uninspiring. This supposedly lackluster nature matters crucially because, as explained in last Monday’s post, so many globalists seek foreign policy careers and push for their characteristic proposals not to help achieve ostensibly mundane aims like ensuring narrow-bore security and prosperity for their country, but out of loftier hopes to prove America’s historical worth by curing various global ills and slaying various global dragons. As a sympathetic author I quoted wrote of the globalist Biden team, they’re “eager to leave their mark on American foreign policy—and the world.”

But as even the Financial Times editorial writers point out, seeking global goals for there is absolutely no domestic political mandate could be a formula for “sparking a counter-reaction” strong enough to return “Trumpism to the White House in four years time.” All Americans have major stakes in hoping that a new administration learns this lesson sooner rather than later.

Im-Politic: Evidence that Trump Would Be Foolish Not to “Run on China”

22 Wednesday Apr 2020

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Im-Politic

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2020 election, CCP Virus, China, climate change, coronavirus, COVID 19, cybersecurity, Democrats, environment, Gallup, human rights, Im-Politic, Jobs, Joe Biden, Pew Research Center, polls, public opinion, Republicans, tariffs, Trade, trade deficit, trade war, Trump, Wuhan virus

Monday I laid out the case that presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has cheer-led every major Washington policy decision in recent decades that has enabled the rise of a wealthy, powerful, and worst of all, hostile and dangerous China. So it’s at least awfully interesting that the day after, a new poll was released making clear that the Trump campaign’s decision to brand the former Vice President as “soft on China” is not only on the mark substantively, but a smart political move.

The poll, conducted by the Pew Research Center, shows that Americans of all political stripes have turned into strong China critics. And especially important – there’s much more going on here than blaming Beijing for the CCP Virus outbreak. Respondents across-the-board now strongly agree that China poses a major threat to a wide range of U.S. interests – including on the trade front, where President Trump’s tariffs were widely reported to be devastating pretty much every major group of actors in the American economy, from businesses to consumers, and from farmers to manufacturers.

P.S. It’s not like Pew has ever itself shown any signs of being critical of China. Indeed, its introduction to the results includes this moral equivalence-friendly assessment: “…with the onset of an unprecedented pandemic, the stage has been set for both sides to cast aspersions on the other.”

The finding Pew emphasizes is a dramatic rise in unfavorable American views of China since Mr. Trump’s inauguration. When he entered office at the beginning of 2017 , the respondents Pew interviewed disapproved of China, but only by a narrow 47 percent to 44 percent margin. The most recent results show unfavorable ratings thumping favorable by 66 percent to 26 percent. The latest negative reviews garnered by Beijing, moreover, represent its worst such showing since Pew began asking the question in 2005.

And as Pew points out, looking at this divergence over time makes clear that China’s ratings began deteriorating long before the virus appeared. In fact, the sharpest increases in Beijing’s unfavorables and sharpest decreases in its favorables started in 2018 – when the administration began announcing and imposing steep levies on huge amounts of prospective imports from China.

Indeed, China’s image among Americans is now so bad that it’s shared among Democrats and Republicans alike. Frustratingly, the survey doesn’t measure the attitudes of declared political independents, but the latest figures show that 72 percent of Republicans and those “leaning” Republican hold unfavorable views of China, and that 62 percent of Democrats and their “leaners” agree. And both negatives are up sharply since the trade war began – or more accurately, since the United States started fighting back.

Not that trade is the only China-related concern expressed in the Pew survey, or even the strongest. Pew gauged U.S. opinion on several China-related issues, and the biggest worries were voiced over “China’s impact on the global environment.” Fully 91 percent of respondents labeled it as a “very serious” or “somewhat serious” problem for the United States, the former responses hitting 61 percent. Next came “cyberattacks from China,” rated as problems by 8 percent of those surveyed, and as “very serious” problems by 57 percent.

Coming in third and fourth were the economic issues. Eighty five percent saw the U.S. trade deficit with China as a problem, including 49 percent calling it serious. And for “the loss of U.S. jobs to China,” the numbers came in at 85 percent and 52 percent, respectively. Interestingly, those latter results nearly matched those for the issue of “China’s growing military power” (84 percent and 49 percent, respectively).

Important to note, however, is evidence that, high as they are, the economic concerns have been leveling off in recent years, while the environmental concerns have been rising (along with those centered on human rights). That’s not necessarily great news for Mr. Trump, whose focus has been on the jobs and overall economy impact (along with the technological threat from China – which is a major source of public China-related concern).

Much better news for the President – Americans aged 50 and older (whose voter turnout rates have long been high) – hold the most negative views of China. Yet this year, Beijing’s image has turned negative for Americans in the 18-29 age class for the first time ever. And for both groups, disapproval of China surged starting in 2018.

Of course, China’s not the only issue on which Americans will be voting this fall. But the latest Gallup results, for example, show that virus-related issues have surged to the top of their rankings for the “most important problem facing the U.S.” If the President can link the virus with the overall China challenge in voters’ minds, his odds of reelection would seem to be pretty good. His biggest obstacle? Possibly the companion Gallup finding that right behind the virus on the list of national problems is “The government/poor leadership.”

Im-Politic: New Evidence that Trump-Russia is a Voter Nothing-Burger

21 Tuesday Aug 2018

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Im-Politic

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

2016 elections, 2020 elections, collusion, foreign policy, Gallup, Im-Politic, midterm elections, polls, public opinion, Russia, Trump, Trump-Russia

I know that it’s only one poll, and that poll results can be pretty dodgy. (See “2016 U.S. Presidential Election.”) But the results of a new Gallup survey on Americans’ views towards U.S.-Russia relations seem well worth spotlighting anyway, especially given the continuing unrelenting headlines being generated by the alleged Trump-Russia scandals, by all the evidence of Russian meddling in American politics, and various investigations of the above.

Gallup asked respondents whether it’s “more important to improve relations with Russia” or “more important to take strong diplomatic and economic steps against Russia.” And by a healthy 58 percent to 36 percent margin, the “improve relations” option won out. Just as striking is that a hard line against Moscow is strongly opposed even though 75 percent of the public believes that Russia interfered in the last presidential election, and 39 percent believes that such activities “changed the outcome.”

As predictable these days, these views are sharply divided along partisan lines. But what’s less predictable is that the Democrats come across as the most intense partisans by far. To be sure, their support for a “hard” vs a “soft” line toward Russia wasn’t overwhelming – 51 percent for the former, 45 percent for the latter. But it contrasted sharply not only with the opinion of Republicans (who favored a softer line by a lopsided 74 percent to 22 percent margin). Democrats’ views also differed significantly from those of independents (who favored a softer line by 55 percent to 37 percent).

And this Gallup survey makes it tough to blame supposed public apathy or ignorance for these findings. Specifically, two-thirds of respondents told Gallup they were following news about Russia and the 2016 election “closely” and 33 percent reported following such developments “very closely.” Gallup contends that this level of attention is “slightly above” the norm for their news attentiveness results going back to 1991.

Moreover, Gallup reports that the more closely its sample members followed the story, the likelier they were to believe that Russia interfered and that its interference mattered. Indeed, ninety percent of the true newshounds accepted the meddling claims. But only 51 percent of this highly attentive group believed that the alleged Russian operations changed the outcome. And those respondents who were following such news only somewhat closely split nearly evenly on the matter (with 42 percent agreeing that the meddling affected the outcome and 40 percent disagreeing)

The same pattern was evident when it came to views on Russia relations options. Of those Americans following these stories very closely, a majority favored the harder line. But the margin was only 53 percent to 42 percent. The results for Americans following the Russia coverage only somewhat closely was the reverse – and then some. Only thirty-seven percent backed the hard line while fully 59 percent opposed it.

When combined with other Gallup findings that, through June, the constellation of Trump-Russia issues wasn’t even moving the needle in terms of Americans’ rankings of their top concerns, this new survey indicates that, unless a genuine smoking gun is uncovered, Democrats would be best advised to stress other anti-Trump messages in their campaigns this year to regain control of Congress. For if voters were strongly responsive, wouldn’t they be demanding that their leaders make Russia pay dearly for an attack on their democracy? At the same time, since voter turnout in mid-term elections is typically very low, hammering away at Russia and impeachment etc could possibly bring to the polls more “resistance” true believers and swing some close races.

The implications for the next presidential race – again, barring a smoking fun – seem clearer: In such a generally higher turnout race, voters are likely to be paying much more attention to the standard array of pocketbook and cultural issues (along with foreign policy, if crises break out) than to whatever’s left of the Trump-Russia controversy.

Im-Politic: A Vacuum at the Heart of The Vietnam War

27 Wednesday Sep 2017

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

1968 New Hampshire Democratic primary, 1968 presidential election, Eugene J. McCarthy, hawks, Im-Politic, Ken Burns, Le Duan, Lyndon B. Johnson, Lynn Novick, military draft, North Vietnam, Patrick Hangopian, PBS, public opinion, South Vietnam, Tet offensive, The Vietnam War, Viet Cong, Vietnam

I was planning on waiting till I saw its end to comment on the Ken Burns/Lynn Novick PBS documentary series, The Vietnam War, since analyzing anything without seeing the whole seems like a great formula for missing something important. But the episode on the January-July, 1968 period (“Things Fall Apart”) covers such a critical period, forthrightly raises so many of most painful questions generated for both supporters and opponents of the war, and then fails so completely to answer them, that this segment seems worth its own posting.

To remind, those first months of 1968 created one of the war’s major turning points; principally, they witnessed the Tet offensive shockingly launched at the end of January by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces against a wide range of targets in South Vietnam. The ferocity and scope of the attacks seemed to discredit completely official American claims of solid progress versus the enemy, and led to levels of U.S. public backing for President Lyndon B. Johnson’s strategy dropping below critical levels, to Johnson’s stunning announcement that he would not seek a second term in office, and to the start of peace talks.

But even that description, which I tried to make as neutral as possible, can be challenged from several standpoints, and these challenges explain much of the frustration I felt watching “Things Fall Apart.”

First some truth in advertising. My strong opposition to the war dates to sometime around 1970 (somewhat later than that of many friends); I would have been a high school junior or senior at the time. Was some of it self-serving? You be the judge: I wasn’t technically a draft dodger, since I received an entirely legal, non-faked 4-F medical deferment. Also, by the time I received my very low (13) lottery number, in 1971, it seemed increasingly clear that the role of American ground troops was cresting, and there was no chance that I’d be flying over Vietnam in an air war that actually intensified. And of course, even at the conflict’s height, the vast majority of U.S. military personnel in the country were volunteers, and most of them were stationed behind the lines (though hardly out of danger).

But even though odds were my skin would have been safe had I been inducted or not, who could really be certain that American politicians would keep their Vietnamization promises over time? Moreover, I was able to avoid any service at all both through an accident of birth and thanks to family circumstances not available to so many of the young Americans who did fight and die or suffer physical and psychological wounds.

Everything I’ve learned since then about the conflict, however, has only deepened my conviction that U.S. military involvement in Vietnam was a ghastly, and in Constitutional terms, criminal mistake, which sought goals not remotely worth the sacrifice in American blood and treasure. It’s easy, consequently, for me personally to find the basic Burns-Novick narrative about early 1968 entirely convincing.

But there have so many flies in this ointment! For example, Tet no doubt was thoroughly discouraging to supporters of the war (including, at that time, yours truly). As The Vietnam War makes clear, Johnson administration assessments of the fight to keep South Vietnam in the non-communist world were invariably much rosier than circumstances warranted. In fact, just before Tet, U.S. officials were sounding especially optimistic that North Vietnamese and Viet Cong units were being “ground down,” and had lost their early momentum. How, then, could they stage attacks the length and breadth of South Vietnam, including fighting their way into the U.S. Embassy compound in Saigon, and holding out in the old imperial capital of Hue for a month?

Certainly elites, especially in the media and politics, were shaken. Certainly, it was the predominant reason for Johnson’s decision about the 1968 presidential race. But the American people? There’s considerable evidence that Tet did not suddenly convince masses of the public that it the time had come for the United States to get out. This 2008 journal article ably summarizes the polling evidence giving grounds for doubt. As Patrick Hagopian of Britain’s Lancaster University has documented, Tet-period surveys generally confirmed and solidified popular dissatisfaction that had been growing since Johnson began greatly escalating the American military effort in 1965.

Just as important, many of the war’s critics actually wanted Johnson to take off the gloves and attack the foe much more energetically – and presumably decisively. In Hagopian’s words. “The majority of Americans identified themselves as ‘hawks’ before the Tet offensive, and their number actually peaked in the immediate aftermath of the offensive, indicating a wish to strike back against the communists. The Tet offensive therefore did not just increase opposition to the war, it intensified the views of hawks who saw the options as ‘fight or get out.’”

Indeed,as Hagopian notes, in the critical March 12, 1968 New Hampshire primary that helped convince Johnson to bow out of the race because of peace candidate Senator Eugene J. McCarthy’s strong showing, “the majority of those who voted for [the grassroots challenger] were Vietnam war hawks who thought that President Johnson was not escalating the war fast enough. This was a repudiation of Johnson’s policies, but it was a protest vote by the hawks and not by people who supported McCarthy’s antiwar stance.” Burns and Novick do refer to this result briefly in The Vietnam War, but it’s treated as a mere footnote and simply left hanging.

Fly in the ointment number two concerns the on-the-ground results of Tet itself. Here Burns and McCarthy admirably embrace a view that still appears far from the conventional wisdom:  Tet was not only a devastating military defeat for the communist side. It was a devastating political defeat. For the offensive’s planners, notably North Vietnamese Communist Party chief Le Duan, expected the attacks to end the war once and for all by sparking a nation-wide revolt against the “puppet” Saigon government. Yet the South Vietnamese populace overwhelmingly stood beside its leaders. And the big domestic political change in the country brought about by Tet was the effective destruction of the southern dominated Viet Cong as a fighting – and major political – force.

The trouble for the documentary is that the Burns and Novick treatment of Tet’s impact on the South Vietnamese people in “Things Fall Apart” clashes violently with their portrayal of that nation’s leaders and their following. In all the previous episodes I’ve seen (that is, all save the first), South Vietnam’s leaders were depicted as incompetent, corrupt, and often both. Their political support, meanwhile, was dismissed as minimal, especially in the countryside that contained some 80 percent of South Vietnam’s people. Further, what the filmmakers tell viewers time and time again is that in the eyes of this highly nationalistic demographic, the Saigon government was also crippled politically by its heavy dependence on foreign (U.S.) backing, and that the American soldiers who strove to prop them up were generally seen as “invaders.”

Yet when this population had the chance to throw out these purportedly illegitimate leaders, most refused.

One possible explanation is that the Saigon government was seen as the lesser of two evils, but this is not an argument that Burns and Novick make. The filmmakers allude to public backing for neutralist and/or Buddhist leaders who favored a negotiated solution to the war, but these references never go beyond the allusion phase – at least not through the end of “Things Fall Apart.” So the South Vietnamese reaction to Tet (and this also includes the Burns-Novick description of a hitherto inept South Vietnamese military that made a major turnaround during Tet and often fought valiantly and effectively) is left as a total mystery.

As a result, also left completely unexamined is the potentially earthshaking but logical (at least) conclusion that can be drawn from these two flies in the ointment – that from a purely military perspective, U.S. leaders had a more accurate understanding of the war than is widely recognized. Specifically, after Tet, the tide on the battlefield had finally turned to a generally neglected extent, and that more persistence may well have produced a conclusion much better for the United States – and even arguably for the South Vietnamese people – than the total victory won by the North. Indeed, why had Hanoi at long last agreed to negotiations in 1968 after only a partial American bombing halt? Because it was still confident of triumphing militarily?

So how come I’m still an opponent of the war? For the reason stated above. No attainable goal in Vietnam could reasonably justify the price paid by America – more than 58,000 dead; some $1 trillion in 2011 (likely a conservative estimate); a broken, divided society; a wounded, distorted economy. Nor am I persuaded by an argument made by some revisionist scholars and other analysts – that the benefits extended well past Vietnam, and that the war is best seen as a delaying action that enabled the whole of East Asia to avoid communist rule and establish the foundations of its more recent stability and prosperity. If these were indeed products of Vietnam, the price for the United States still would have been wildly excessive, in my opinion.

But these subjects are much more deserving of public national debate than they’ve received so far, especially since the United States has found itself in several other unpopular, unsuccessful wars in spite of defeat in Vietnam, and surely stayed out of several other likely unpopular conflicts because of it. They also deserve much more discussion that devoted by Burns and Novick. The Vietnam War has been touted as a documentary that will help Americans better understand an historic episode that continues powerfully shaping the present in more ways than I suspect many recognize. Its treatment of crucial questions in “Things Fall Apart” makes me wonder whether it will even approach achieving this goal.

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