The past month has been a whirlwind for the politics of NATO.<\/p>\n
Former president Donald Trump continued to undermine the alliance \u2014 and scare allies \u2014 by saying he would encourage Russia to \u201cdo whatever the hell they want\u201d to NATO allies who don\u2019t pay enough. And a Republican U.S. senator is blaming the United States and NATO for Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Still, the path for NATO to expand yet again cleared Monday, with the final holdout country endorsing Sweden\u2019s ascension. That holdout: Hungary, which is led by Trump (and Vladimir Putin) ally Viktor Orban. Sweden will join Finland, which became a NATO country last year and vastly expanded the Russia-NATO land border.<\/p>\n
That split screen highlights both the uncertain domestic politics of NATO and its potential centrality in the years to come, in the face of a belligerent Putin.<\/p>\n
So where does the American public stand?<\/p>\n
For now, it remains in NATO\u2019s corner \u2014 even as it\u2019s clear that the continued attacks from Trump and his allies have had an impact on the political right.<\/p>\n
First, the good news for the alliance:<\/p>\n
A Quinnipiac University poll last week showed that more than 8 in 10 Americans said NATO was important to U.S. security. A majority \u2014 56 percent \u2014 said it was \u201cvery important.\u201d<\/span>An Economist\/YouGov poll showed that Americans had a favorable opinion of NATO, 53 percent to 22 percent. (The rest were undecided.)<\/span><\/p>\n Americans also generally support the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO:<\/p>\n The YouGov poll showed that Americans said it was a good idea rather than a bad one, 46-19. Even Republicans leaned in favor, 36-30.<\/span>A Chicago Council for Global Affairs-Ipsos survey shared with The Washington Post showed that 69 percent of Americans favored Ukraine\u2019s admission to NATO. That included 64 percent of Republicans.<\/span><\/p>\n But these surveys also get at the \u201cbut.\u201d<\/p>\n While Americans as a whole are about as supportive of NATO as they were shortly after Russia\u2019s invasion in early 2022, Republicans have moved away from the alliance. A significant chunk of them also align with Trump\u2019s comments about encouraging Russia to do \u201cwhatever the hell they want\u201d to NATO countries that don\u2019t meet spending targets.<\/p>\n Republican support for Ukraine joining NATO has moved from 50 percent in favor with 19 percent opposed in the YouGov polling in July to 36-30 today.<\/p>\n Similarly, the Quinnipiac poll showed that the percentage of Republicans who label NATO \u201cvery important\u201d has dropped from 40 percent in April 2022 to 33 percent today. Nearly as many label it either \u201cnot so important\u201d (17 percent) or \u201cnot at all important\u201d (12 percent).<\/p>\n The Quinnipiac poll also gave people a choice between pulling out of NATO because other countries don\u2019t pay enough and staying in because NATO is so important to global security. Republicans aligned with the former sentiment more, 48-43, suggesting that an attempted NATO exit in Trump\u2019s second term could have a base.<\/p>\n Perhaps the most striking numbers, though, have to do with Trump\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n The Quinnipiac poll showed that Americans said Trump\u2019s comments were a \u201cbad idea,\u201d 71-18. The YouGov poll showed that Americans disapproved, 54-23.<\/p>\n But in both cases, Republicans with an opinion were actually about evenly split: 38 percent called Trump\u2019s comments a \u201cgood idea\u201d (versus 39 percent saying \u201cbad idea\u201d), and 35 percent approved of his comments (versus 39 percent disapproving).<\/p>\n Even more notable was the split within the GOP. While Republicans who don\u2019t identify as \u201cMAGA\u201d disapproved by a similar margin to Americans overall, 48-27, MAGA Republicans actually approved 46-29.<\/p>\n It also bears noting that, while Trump\u2019s comments were somewhat vague and suggestive of Russia attacking those countries, the YouGov question specifically tested whether people supported \u201cencouraging Russia to take action\u201d against those countries.<\/p>\n Nearly half of MAGA Republicans supported actually doing that.<\/p>\n Some of this is undoubtedly Trump loyalists being told that Trump said something and deciding to align with him; the poll showed only about one-quarter of Republicans said they had heard \u201ca lot\u201d about Trump\u2019s comments. And perhaps some see strategic value in ploys like this increasing pressure on NATO allies to pay more \u2014 the ostensible purpose of Trump\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n But we can\u2019t assume that support for NATO will remain as strong as it currently is. Even as NATO continues to expand, the American political right is showing that its support for the alliance is relatively wide but not terribly deep. And it\u2019s clearly receptive to Trump\u2019s provocations.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The past month has been a whirlwind for the politics of NATO. Former president Donald Trump continued to undermine the alliance \u2014 and scare allies \u2014 by saying he would encourage Russia to \u201cdo whatever the hell they want\u201d to NATO allies who don\u2019t pay enough. And a Republican U.S. senator is blaming the United […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1492,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}