Most Voters Agree With Trump’s Withdrawal From ‘Endless Wars’
(Zero Hedge) A majority of voters polled by Rasmussen agree with President Trump’s statement that “It is time for us to get out of these ridiculous endless wars, many of them tribal, and bring our soldiers home. We will fight where it is to our benefit, and only fight to win.”
According to the poll, 58% agree with the above statement, 20% disagree, and 22% were unsure.
As Rasmussen notes, “Even 55% of Democrats agree with the statement,” adding the caveat: “Rasmussen Reports did not identify Trump as the source of the quotation in its question.”
Sixty-nine percent (69%) of Republicans and 50% of voters not affiliated with either major political party also agree. Democrats and unaffiliated are more likely than GOP voters to be undecided.
Forty-four percent (44%) of all voters continue to believe that our political leaders send American soldiers into harm’s way too often, but that’s down from 52% two years ago and the lowest finding in regular surveying since January 2013. Only four percent (4%) think U.S. solders aren’t send into harm’s way enough. Thirty-eight percent (38%) view the balance as about right. –Rasmussen
The poll comes after the Trump administration announced late Sunday night that US forces in northern Syria would step aside to allow a planned Turkish offensive, saying in a statement:
“Today, President Donald J. Trump spoke with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey by telephone. Turkey will soon be moving forward with its long-planned operation into Northern Syria. The United States Armed Forces will not support or be involved in the operation, and United States forces, having defeated the ISIS territorial “Caliphate,” will no longer be in the immediate area.
“The United States Government has pressed France, Germany, and other European nations, from which many captured ISIS fighters came, to take them back, but they did not want them and refused. The United States will not hold them for what could be many years and great cost to the United States taxpayer. Turkey will now be responsible for all ISIS fighters in the area captured over the past two years in the wake of the defeat of the territorial “Caliphate” by the United States.”
While 57% believed the US military is overstretched just three years ago, 38% of the 1,000 likely voters polled said the same when asked between October 7-8. 43% say the military can adequately handle the number of missions it has, while 19% are undecided.
“This marks the first time in Rasmussen Reports surveying that voters who are comfortable with the military’s efforts outnumber those who think it is overstretched.”
Delving deeper (the rest of the report):
In late December of last year, 37% of voters agreed with Trump’s subsequently postponed decision to remove all U.S. troops from Syria; 47% disagreed, and 16% were undecided. But at the same time, only 35% thought U.S. involvement in Middle East politics is good for the United States.
Those under 40 are even more likely than their elders to agree with Trump’s statement, although younger voters are less convinced than they have been in the past that our leaders are too eager to send in the troops.
Democrats (53%) are much more likely than Republicans (34%) and unaffiliated voters (46%) to think our political leaders send American soldiers into harm’s way too often. They’re also the most likely to think the U.S. military is overstretched these days.
Yet while 80% of voters who Strongly Approve of the job Trump is doing agree with his statement about getting out of “endless wars,” only 44% of those who Strongly Disapprove of the president’s job performance share that view.
Those who agree with the statement are evenly divided over whether the U.S. military is overstretched now, but 57% of these voters think our political leaders sent U.S. solders into harm’s way too often.
Fifty-three percent (53%) of all voters think the United States and its allies are winning the War on Terror. Prior to Trump’s election, this finding generally ran from the mid-20s to the low 40s.
Seventy-one percent (71%) say that when Trump thinks about problems in the world, he is more interested in finding a solution that most benefits the United States rather than the one that’s better for the world. By comparison, only 23% thought President Obama was more interested in finding a solution that most benefits the United States
Fewer voters than ever see Afghanistan as important to America’s well-being, but most still stop short of supporting a complete troop withdrawal.
Fifty-five percent (55%) said two years ago that the most important mission of the U.S. military is to fight our enemies. Just 28% disagreed and said the military’s most important mission is to serve as peacekeepers to prevent fighting from breaking out in other parts of the world.
We wonder what the responses would look like from Democrats if the leading quote was attributed to Trump?
As Summit News noted Wednesday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez suddenly reversed her longstanding opposition to ‘forever wars’ upon Trump’s pullout from Syria. We wonder what other ‘values’ she’d compromise in the blink of an eye.
