Skip to main content

It Turns Out the Troops Like Biden and Dislike Trump to the Same Degree Everyone Else Does


Joe Biden at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia in 2014. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The theme of this week’s presidential campaign news cycle—and maybe the theme of the entire next month, until the debates create additional Pundit Content—is whether Donald Trump can win back white voters by presenting himself as the candidate who’s tough enough to enforce “law and order.”

Advertisement

The first part of this strategy is to wildly exaggerate the amount of property damage and rioting and general unlivability associated with civil rights protests in major cities. The second part is to suggest that only someone as strong as Trump is can end the unrest—something he routinely threatens to do by unleashing the full attacking power of the police, various federal law enforcement agencies, and the military. The final night of the Republican National Convention was an attempt to support this strategy by presenting Trump as the chosen candidate of America’s true-blue tough guys, with the president receiving on-camera endorsements from New York City police union leader Patrick Lynch, mixed martial arts promoter Dana White, erstwhile 9/11 hero Rudy Giuliani, and hawkish Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton.

According to a poll released Monday, however, Trump does not even have the support of the most canonically tough and patriotic demographic group in American politics: the troops. According to the Military Times, active-duty U.S. service members say they are planning, by a margin of 43.1 percent to 37.4 percent, to vote for Joe Biden over Trump. The incumbent president’s approval rating with service members stands at 38 percent, with 50 percent disapproving.

This line from the Military Times’ write-up captures why this result, for Trump, is Quite Bad:

Advertisement

About 40 percent of troops surveyed identified as Republican or Libertarian, 16 percent Democrats, and 44 percent independent or another party.

The individuals polled were for the most part not partisan Democrats; 93 percent of them were white. It does not seem like a great speculative leap to say that the Military Times surveyed a voter cohort that is one of the most receptive imaginable to traditional GOP messages about law and order. Biden still won that cohort by 6 points.

Some caveats: The poll was taken before the RNC, which put a heavy emphasis on property damage that occurred concurrent to protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and Portland, Oregon. The Military Times also notes that since it contacts respondents by using its own subscriber information, its sample may skew toward “career-oriented” service members. On the other hand: In an October 2016 Military Times poll that used the same methodology, Trump led Hillary Clinton by 20 points.

It also turns out that the troops themselves don’t support the idea of sending in the troops:

Advertisement

Almost 74 percent of those surveyed disagreed with Trump’s suggestion that active-duty military personnel should be used to respond to civil unrest in American cities, including the ongoing racial equality protests.

Forty-eight percent of military respondents, moreover, identified white nationalism—an ideology Trump has allied himself with, and which appears to have motivated members of the MAGA “militias” who attacked protesters in Kenosha and Portland—as “a significant national security issue.” It’s tough to argue that you have the solution to a problem when your solution thinks you are the problem, if that makes sense.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wray: FBI deemed Jan. 6 attack domestic terrorism

FBI Director Christopher Wray said Tuesday that officials have classified the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by former President Trump Donald TrumpProsecutors focus Trump Organization probe on company's financial officer: report WHO official says it's 'premature' to think pandemic will be over by end of year Romney released from hospital after fall over the weekend MORE's supporters as domestic terrorism. "That attack, that siege, was criminal behavior, plain and simple, and it’s behavior that we, the FBI, view as domestic terrorism," Wray told lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Wray said the FBI has received more than 270,000 tips from Americans that have helped the bureau identify the numerous people who allegedly participated in the attack. ADVERTISEMENT "Citizens from around the country have sent us more than 270,000 digital media tips. Some have even taken the painful step of turning in their friends or their family members,” ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Matt Gaetz's ex-girlfriend to cooperate with federal authorities in sex trafficking investigation

Washington (CNN) Federal authorities investigating alleged sex trafficking by GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz have secured the cooperation of the congressman's ex-girlfriend, according to people familiar with the matter. The woman, a former Capitol Hill staffer, is seen as a critical witness, as she has been linked to Gaetz as far back as the summer of 2017, a period of time that has emerged as a key window of scrutiny for investigators. She can also help investigators understand the relevance of hundreds of transactions they have obtained records of, including those involving alleged payments for sex, the sources said. News of the woman's willingness to talk, which has not been previously reported, comes just days after the Justice Department formally entered into a plea agreement with Joel Greenberg, a one-time close friend of Gaetz whose entanglement with young women first drew the congressman onto investigators' radar. CNN reported last week that investigators were pressing for the...
Post a Comment
Read more

Biden Wants to Hire 87,000 Additional IRS Agents to Go After Wealthy Tax Dodgers

The Biden administration is proposing hiring 87,000 new workers for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), effectively doubling the agency’s size, as part of a plan to beef up enforcement efforts and find billions of dollars in tax revenues that go uncollected each year. Enforcement efforts would primarily target individuals and corporations with higher incomes and profits, the administration has suggested. The hiring, which would be part of President Joe Biden’s overall $80 billion spending plan to increase enforcement efforts at the IRS, would not happen all at once. Instead, it would be carried out in phases, with a 15 percent growth in employment at the agency per year until that 87,000 hiring benchmark is reached. The move would help recoup (and go beyond) some of the employment losses the agency has seen over the past decade, as the IRS has lost more than 33,000 workers over the past decade. The drop in employment at the agency has resulted in fewer audits, particularly for filers w...
Post a Comment
Read more