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According to a poll by Quinnipiac University published on Thursday, 46% of Republicans would support a preemptive strike against North Korea, while 26% of the general population would support such an attack. However, this figure is significantly different from the findings of Washington Post and ABC News poll from three weeks ago. The Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 30% of Republicans say that the U.S. should strike North Korea first, compared to 23% overall support of a preemptive strike.
On the subject of North Korea, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson stated on CNN on Sunday that "those diplomatic efforts will continue until the first bomb drops." Tillerson insisted that Trump "is not seeking to go to war" despite Trumps previous tweets suggesting that negotiating with North Korea would be a waste of time.
What could explain the discrepancies between the messages of Tillerson and Trump? How about the public support of these two very different strategies?
2 comments:
I believe that the discrepancy may come from Tillerson wanting to ease the public's possible anger due to the statement. Just to speak about the general issue, I think Trump's remarks seem not well thought out. I think its important that he thinks a lot before possibly putting our country in a lot of danger. I think the public is more on my side as there is a small amount who support the preemptive strike. I think their lack of support is also their desire to keep the country safe.
Trump has a always been viewed as a more radical Republican who tends to say what he wants. Tillerson, although also a Republican, may just be submitting to the public opinion in an attempt to suppress resistance. And doing that I believe is beneficial, because Trump tends to say many things that happen much much later, so at least for now, I don't think the public has to worry about any war starting up. Another reason there could be a discrepancy is because Tillerson spoke on CNN, which is seen as a leaning Democratic channel, so he may have felt the need to cater the audience that is actually watching him say these things, whereas Trump says whatever he wants on Twitter. As for the public opinion, many seem to oppose Trump, including Republicans, since only about half of Republicans are on his side. Because of this, Trump will have to put lots of effort into convincing the public to support a preemptive strike if he wants that to become a reality.
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