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https://hotair.com/allahpundit/2022/03/07/poll-majority-of-republicans-and-indies-would-stay-and-fight-if-u-s-were-invaded-but-majority-of-dems-would-leave-n453597

Poll: Majority of Republicans and indies would stay and fight if U.S.
were invaded -- but majority of Dems would leave
ALLAHPUNDIT Mar 07, 2022 8:01 PM ET


AP Photo/Lisa Marie Pane
Often when you read a poll you’ll find yourself surprised by how the
answer to a question confounds your cultural expectations of America’s
two parties.


This is not one of those polls.

Not a great look for Democratic patriotism here, although there’s a
gender dynamic at work beneath the surface.



It’s not a coincidence that the split among Democrats precisely mirrors
the split among women. American women skew Democratic. If women are much
less likely to stay and fight than men are, inevitably Democrats will be
much less likely as well.

Although that excuse only goes so far:


The Times interviewed a woman psychologist in Ukraine for a new story
about the hatred for Russia inside her country right now and she told
them that, while anger is a normal reaction, it should be diverted into
useful channels — “such as making incendiary bombs out of empty bottles.”

Ukraine: Where even lady therapists are building molotov cocktails in
their down time.

Another remarkable thing about the result above is that the question
seems primed for “social desirability bias,” i.e. the pressure someone taking a poll feels to give the socially acceptable answer to a pollster
even if their honest opinion is otherwise. At a moment like this, with
the entire world celebrating the spirited defense of Ukraine by patriots
like Zelensky, a question about whether you’d fight for your own country
is the easiest “yes” you’ll ever give whether that’s the truth or not.


Yet Democrats still couldn’t get to 50 percent on it. We’re left to
wonder how much of the 40 percent who said they’d fight were lying and
just giving the socially acceptable answer. Maybe the true number of
Democrats who’d stay put is far less.

One other fascinating detail not visible in the table is the sharp split between blacks and Latinos on the question. Just 38 percent of African-Americans say they’d fight versus 59 percent who’d leave. But
among Hispanics, 61 percent would fight compared to 33 percent who’d
leave. I assume that’s a cultural legacy of America’s historical persecution of blacks, generating a degree of national disaffection that persists to this day. Without that same history of persecution,
Hispanics’ numbers are more in line with whites’ and Republicans’. That’s another ominous data point for Democrats who are tracking
Latinos’ rightward political shift.

The other news in this new Quinnipiac poll is that Americans are feeling
very, very hawkish towards Russia. The usual partisan gaps have
disappeared, which tracks with other polling we’ve seen recently. If you watch Tucker Carlson every night and listened to Trump talk foreign
policy at any point over the past six years, you’d be forgiven for
assuming there’s a sizable Russia-curious, NATO-skeptical nationalist contingent within the GOP. Reality check: There isn’t. Here’s what Quinnipiac saw when it asked whether the U.S. should respond militarily
if Russia attacks a NATO ally:




Republicans are firmer on NATO than independents are.

Americans are willing to bear other burdens to help Ukraine. Seventy-one percent overall and 66 percent of Republicans say they’re willing to pay
more at the pump as the price for banning Russian oil, a remarkable
result at a moment of already high inflation. There’s also strong
support for admitting Ukrainian refugees into the U.S. at 78 percent,
including 66 percent of Republicans. Biden gets a middling grade for his handling of the conflict so far at 42/45 but the discontent is due
almost entirely to feelings that he hasn’t been tough enough on Russia.
The White House just joined Europe on the equivalent of a coordinated
nuclear strike on Russia’s economy and many Americans still want bigger munitions:



Overwhelmingly, the party of Trump and Carlson believes Biden’s been too
soft on Putin. Some of that we might attribute to raw partisanship, the
sense among righties that lefties are forever too weak on America’s
enemies no matter what actions they’ve taken. (Revisit the first table
up above for an example why.) But even a near-majority of Democrats want
Biden to get tougher on Russia.

Uh, how? We’re sending weapons, we’re providing intelligence, we’ve sanctioned Russia into economic oblivion.

My guess is that many in the “not tough enough” group across the board
have heard Zelensky’s pleas for a no-fly zone and resent the fact that
the White House has dismissed the idea. Biden’s doing the right thing in
that case by not embroiling the U.S. in the conflict in the skies over
Ukraine, but many Americans may not realize what an NFZ would entail.
They may think it’s some sort of decree rather than kinetic U.S.
military action against the Russian air force, a development that would
risk touching off a nuclear exchange.


Here’s the latest video from Zelensky. It’s not subtitled,
unfortunately, but the optics are the important thing. He’s still in his office in Kiev despite knowing that Russian troops are looking for him.
He’ll stay and fight.

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