This semester I'm teaching a senior seminar in African American Studies and a class on Public Opinion and American Democracy. I'm particularly looking forward to this latter class. The first time I taught it was the semester of the attacks. I'd originally planned a normal (boring) series of readings on public opinion, and exams. In the wake of the attacks I decided to make a radical change. I threw the syllabus out and with the permission of the students spent the majority of the time having them conduct innovative research projects around the attacks. If I was a BIT more nimble I would've created a website to document the students' output....
I expect then to spend a bit more time this semester at least on public opinion issues.
I was watching C-Span and see that the Army Times conducted a survey on the enlisted. I don't think the editor was gaming the audience on C-Span at all...but I do think there are some important caveats to the survey that the editor didn't reveal until prodded.
The first deals with representativeness. Surveys are supposed to (in theory) present a snapshot of a given population. So the findings of this survey are SUPPOSED to represent the thoughts of enlisted brothers and sisters as a whole. But check out the fine print. Of those enlisted, the officer corps was significantly over-represented. Rather than thinking (and reporting) about this survey as an Army survey it is probably more accurate to think of it as an Army OFFICER survey. A survey of elites rather than of the rank and file.
The second deals with question wording. Take the question about support for Bush. What the hell does "support" mean in this circumstance? Agree with everything he does? Does it refer to the degree to which the respondent wants the President to do well in general? To do well in Iraq? It's hard to tell. A much better set of questions would refer to specific government actions.
The third problem deals with the nature of the military. The military isn't the most democratic of institutions. Who the hell wants to determine troop movements by votes? In order to insulate the military from politics, a culture of don't ask don't tell has developed. Don't ask about my politics, and I won't tell you about them. This problem exists in the general population too, particularly around sensitive issues (like race and racism). Just like white Democrats in Chicago were likely to SAY they were voting for Harold Washington (African American) when he ran for mayor in Chicago and then vote another way once they got in the booth, I would argue that this survey significantly over estimates pro-government military public opinion.
Reading the survey as an underestimation of military sentiment, I think there is serious cause for concern.
Posted by at January 4, 2004 09:22 AM | TrackBackWell you can blame the survey on the officers if you want but here is what I can tell you. The survey I think is actually wrong also. I as an enlisted man see nearly only Bush bumper stickers on vehicles of soldiers. I have to be fair and tell you that I have seen three Kerry stickers and that is all. I of course support the President and have already sent my Absentee Ballot in. I would say that the number is closer to 80 to 90 percent in the military support our President and his policies.
Thanks
But my central question is what does support mean in this context? Don't military personnel as a general rule have to "support" the Commander-in-chief?
Posted by: Lester Spence at October 8, 2004 05:34 PMGIs will vote appropriately in this election, and how they vote will depend largely on how close they've been to the action.
Military personnel swear an oath to obey the orders of the Commander-in-Chief. Following orders is vastly different from supporting policy, and people need to realize that.
I have served through five Presidencies. I usually put all politicians in the same boat and can point to military action or policies that I strongly disliked from all of the Commanders-in-Chief I have served under. However, I swore an oath to obey their orders, and that's all that matters. So, if they send me to fight, I just do it. I can hate the politics behind the order, but I swore an oath to follow it, and that's that.
Politicizing a GI's military service is both foolish and dangerous to our national security. Are any of you suggesting that if a GI doesn't like a President's politics, they are not bound to follow that person's orders? We would have an absolute breakdown of good order and discipline among our ranks, and the military would be in a state of chaos.
The thinking of many GIs has been tainted by this unnaturally strong desire to make them political animals. This seemed to really bubble up during the Clinton Administrations, when GIs were openly dissing the President for no other reason than his politics.
Now, many of those same people are aggressively suggesting among the ranks that we "support Bush". What the hell does that mean? We don't live in some Third World dictatorship.
About this "80-80 percent" thing: That is vastly off the mark. People's attitudes are simply being influenced by the noise level. From my experience: In terms of political leanings, it's probably close to a 33% split across the board among conservative/liberal/apolitical enlisted GIs. The officer corps usually is more conservative, though I'm not sure why.
However, the last four years has changed the dynamic somewhat, because of the actions of the President and the Secretary of Defense. An overwhelming majority of GIs I speak to, especially in the Army, loathe the SECDEF and accuse him of breaking the Army. They also accuse the President's political advisors of using GIs as props to enhance the President's image. The best examples of this were his performance on the USS Abraham Lincoln and his appearance at Ft. Stewart, where all the GIs stood and saluted as he strutted by.
I don't need to talk about the invasion/occupation of Iraq here; it speaks for itself.
Many conservatives in the military feel that these things show them that the President and SECDEF have broken faith with the military. Therefore, they cannot be trusted.
Posted by: zoomie at October 10, 2004 04:40 AM
Blacks in the military outweigh Blacks in the population if the survey question a true sample of the services wonder what Bush support would be.
Posted by: tootsie at January 9, 2004 06:30 PM