This Is How Little Americans Care About Afghanistan
You wouldn’t know it from watching the news, but the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan probably isn’t a political crisis for President Joe Biden.
SO WHAT
Republicans might want to be careful about overplaying their hand.
THE DATA
A USA Today/Suffolk University poll released Tuesday showed Biden’s approval rating at 41%, down several points from his average last week, with only 26% of Americans supporting his handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal.
OK, BUT
The war is unpopular: 53% of the public backs Biden’s decision to withdraw, and 60% say the Afghanistan war was a mistake in the first place, with most of the blame going to former President George W. Bush, according to the poll.
Biden has other problems: Biden’s average approval rating had been falling for months before Kabul fell last week — amid declining support for the president’s handling of the economy and COVID-19.
Nobody votes on foreign policy anyway: In an Aug. 14-17 NBC News poll, which spanned Kabul’s Aug. 15 fall to the Taliban, Afghanistan didn’t even make the list of Americans’ top political concerns.
- Apathy about foreign policy is the norm in U.S. history, political scientist Seth Masket pointed out Wednesday in a Politico op-ed headlined “Will Afghanistan Take Biden Down? Not Likely.”
THE RIGHT RESPONSE
While Afghanistan has given Republicans a new talking point about Biden’s incompetence and boosted Fox News’ ratings, the GOP appears to be reading the room ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.
- In attack ads launched Wednesday against 15 vulnerable Democrats, the House Republicans’ campaign arm focuses entirely on inflation instead of the Afghanistan withdrawal.