Democrats frequently promise to “fight” when seeking election. Here’s the party’s thought leader, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: “‘We can and must fight‘: AOC urges Americans to ‘get to work’ to defeat Donald Trump following Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death” (Independent 2020). Nancy’s Pelosi’s 2010 statement on President Obama’s Economic Speech says Democrats are “fighting” for the middle class. The most excellent of current Democrats, as evidenced by his/her/zir/their elevation to the Presidency: “I want to make sure we’re going to fight like hell by investing in America first,” said Biden. (NYT, December 2020) Biden’s inaugural address: “I will fight as hard for those who did not support me as for those who did.” Biden in April 2021: “the climate crisis is not our fight alone. It’s a global fight.” The godlike Obama in 2018: “You can make it better. Better’s always worth fighting for.” Obama in 2009: “I will fight for you. … I got my start fighting for working families in the shadows of a shuttered steel plant.” Hillary Clinton’s concession speech: “I have, as Tim said, spent my entire adult life fighting for what I believe in. … please never stop believing that fighting for what’s right is worth it.”
A Quinnipiac University poll, however, found that there was one thing Democrats did not want to fight against: a military invasion.
As the world witnesses what is happening to Ukraine, Americans were asked what they would do if they were in the same position as Ukrainians are now: stay and fight or leave the country? A majority (55 percent) say they would stay and fight, while 38 percent say they would leave the country. Republicans say 68 – 25 percent and independents say 57 – 36 percent they would stay and fight, while Democrats say 52 – 40 percent they would leave the country.
Here’s more granular data (from the above URL, click “download as PDF”):
White men were the group most likely to say that they were willing to fight, at 75 percent. We’re informed that Americans who identify as “women” are generally strong and independent, but, in the event of an invasion, only 40 percent say that they’d be willing to fight. Americans identifying as “Hispanic” were actually slightly more likely than whites to be willing to fight while Americans who identify as “Black” already had one foot over the border (only 38 percent would be willing to stay and fight, the lowest percentage of any demographic group).
Although most apparently won’t be fighting, Americans who identify as “white women” are the ones who are truly suffering from what is happening in Ukraine, with 65 percent saying that they’re feeling anxious:
When we combine decades of political rhetoric with the poll results, is it fair to say that Democrats are enthusiastic about any fight except one involving a foreign army that is trying to take over the U.S.?
“We’re informed that Americans who identify as “women” are generally strong and independent, but, in the event of an invasion, only 40 percent say that they’d be willing to fight.
40% is an impressive number. They would have to define stay and fight. Distributing bottled water is one thing. Bayonet charges while “fighting” dysentery (and covid) are another.
For the Silicon Valley “elites”, there are bigger threats than a foreign invasion. Here is a prepper guide from the NewYorker (of course, rather than fighting, they leave for New Zealand
):
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-for-the-super-rich
Justin Kan, the technology investor who had made a halfhearted effort to stock up on food, recalled a recent phone call from a friend at a hedge fund. “He was telling me we should buy land in New Zealand as a backup. He’s, like, ‘What’s the percentage chance that Trump is actually a fascist dictator? Maybe it’s low, but the expected value of having an escape hatch is pretty high.’
That’s right. And they’ll be captured and used as hostages or worse.
Phil’s “identifying” point has been made ad infinitum over at least a year, maybe longer. We get it, Phil. Isn’t it time to move on?
Jack: If you don’t like the phrase “Americans who identify as ‘women'” then please define the term “women”! Similarly, what’s your definition of “Black” and “Hispanic”? If you don’t have clear definitions for these terms, then I think it doesn’t make sense to use them without the identification clarification.
Until we fight Skynet this is probably kind of a lame scenario for someone living in the US.
For the Democrats who were polled, any fight on U.S. soil was “a lame scenario”, apparently…
Canada or Mexico?
For Americans who say that they are passionate about diversity and “brown” people, the standard announced plan is a move to Canada, never Mexico. See https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/22/move-to-canada-celebrities-donald-trump for a partial list.
It was meant as a question on which scary invader we would be fighting off.
LP, Ukrainians too thought just 10 years ago that nobody was going to attack them. If question you are posting sounds rhetorical now it may become not rhetorical in not so distant future.
Low Skilled Immigrant – I’m not saying there is no possibility for the US to be attacked. What I’m saying is that it is difficult to come up with an invasion scenario where the general public is engaged in defending the homeland.
We just don’t want to admit it, but the US is and has been under attack by illegal migrants at the rate of over 500K a year for decades now. No wonder why almost all services are now offered in Spanish too.
LP, Don’t you think that if our civil and military leadership is incompetent enough not to exploit high fighting spirit of Ukrainian Cossack to defend their homeland and in parallel take care of US enemies it could be totally incompetent defending American homeland? Maybe they decide that Oceania can not use artillery against invading Eurasia/Eastasia union not to provoke them further and it will be up to people to defend themselves?
Just a reminder — what people say they’d do and what they will actually do are two very different things. Especially in high personal cost / low personal reward situation.
Besides averros’s excellent point about stated and revealed preferences, consider, too, that “the same position as Ukrainians are now” in the question can be interpreted in more than one way.
Some respondents may have assumed this meant foreign military invasions, in the abstract—which would tend to support Philip’s interpretation of the results—but others might have considered specific aspects of the Ukraine situation, such as the adversary’s numerical superiority, other countries’ reluctance to enter the war, and the availability of refuge elsewhere.