Classic America

Showing what has to be in the top 5 examples of Americans' strangle-hold on the overly obvious is this headline at Brookings:

The American people’s message to President Biden about Ukraine—get tougher but don’t risk war with Russia

The latest survey of public opinion about the conflict in Ukraine presents a paradox. On the one hand, Americans say that they want President Biden to get tougher with Russia. On the other hand, their views about specific policies precisely track with the administration’s stance. Americans want the administration to do what the administration is already doing, and they do not want the administration to take the additional steps that it has already rejected.

For example, more than six in ten Americans favor imposing sanctions on Russia, providing financial aid to Ukraine, and sending weapons to Ukrainian forces. And by 52 to 19%, they support sending more American troops to bolster the defense of our NATO allies.

But Americans draw a bright line between these measures and policies that risk a direct confrontation between the United States and Russia. Just 33% support sending American troops to “help” the Ukrainians, and only 16% want our troops to be fighting by their side. By a margin of 21 to 52%, they reject shooting down Russia planes, and consistent with this stance, they oppose enforcing a no-fly zone in Ukrainian airspace.

Americans are also leery of non-military measures such as launching cyber attacks against Russia, presumably because they fear Russian retaliation against our information infrastructure, and flatly reject efforts to foment a coup against Vladimir Putin.

Americans are willing to confront the Russians diplomatically, however, and they reject the steps some have urged as ways of mollifying the Russians and ending their invasion of Ukraine. Only one in five Americans think that the US should promise Russia that Ukraine will never join NATO; just 14% say that we should roll back our troop deployments in Eastern Europe. And in a near-unanimous rejection of a Russian “sphere of influence,” only 8% think that Russia should be allowed to exert more power over the now-independent states of the former Soviet Union.

So, yeah Joe - keep doing everything you're doing, and keep on not doing everything you're not doing - and we'll keep believing we know everything there is to know, and that you're not doing what you should be doing, and that you are doing what you shouldn't be doing, because we watch the Press Poodles shit all over you for an hour or so every night.