The Washington Post has a new poll out that asks about drone attacks on suspected terrorists. Everybody loves them. What’s more, two-thirds of the country likes them even if the targets are American citizens:
Greg Sargent says these numbers are even more depressing than they seem:
The number of those who approve of the drone strikes drops nearly 20 percent when respondents are told that the targets are American citizens. But that 65 percent is still a very big number, given that these policies really should be controversial.
And get this: Depressingly, Democrats approve of the drone strikes on American citizens by 58-33, and even liberals approve of them, 55-35. Those numbers were provided to me by the Post polling team.
OK, that’s depressing. But I guess I’d still like to dig into this a little further. How many people approve of these attacks on American citizens if they understand that there’s no court judgment involved, no finding of guilt, no warrant, no nothing? Just the executive branch unilaterally deciding they need to be killed. It would be tricky to phrase this in a neutral way, but without it I don’t think we really have a clear picture here. Most people, when they hear a question like this, aren’t primed to think about any of these things, and probably don’t give them any thought. They might feel differently if they did.
