Survey: Americans want to scale back military entanglements
But Morning Consult should be taken to task for calling this impulse a ‘preference for isolationism’ versus ‘engagement.’
DECEMBER 2, 2022
Written by
Daniel Larison
According to a new poll, perhaps not surprisingly, many Americans across party lines would like the U.S. to have a less interventionist and meddlesome foreign policy.
The results of a Morning Consult survey show that there continues to be substantial public support for scaling back U.S. military entanglements. Large blocs of Republicans and Democrats are in favor of less involvement in the affairs of other countries in general, and a plurality of Americans supports decreasing overseas deployments and reducing involvement in foreign conflicts.
While there were slight fluctuations over the course of the three-month survey, there were more voters that said they wanted a decreased military presence and a reduced role in foreign wars than chose the status quo or a larger role. The disconnect between what this plurality of voters wants and what the government is doing in different parts of the world is as big as it has ever been.
Unfortunately, the survey report frames these results in the crudest terms of “isolationism” vs. engagement. Morning Consult’s pejorative framing of this sentiment as support for “greater isolationism” seems likely to reinforce policymakers’ habits of dismissing public skepticism of U.S. entanglements out of hand. Calling something “isolationism” is never merely descriptive, and it is almost always inaccurate, so whenever it is deployed it is a sign of sloppiness or hostility, or both.
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/12/02/survey-americans-want-to-scale-back-military-entanglements/
