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Americans who don't know where Ukraine is are most eager to bomb it
Americans who don't know where Ukraine is are most eager to bomb it
by Hunter
The results of this poll are what we mean when we say 'Murica.
Call it the Palin Doctrine: the less you know about something, the more sure you are that America needs to blow that something up in order to fix it (though fairness requires pointing out the same doctrine is at work in the House Republican response to health reform, in conservative suppositions that various scientific discoveries of the last century are merely plots to be dismantled, and in every George Will column on any subject written in the last fifteen years. It's a small toolbox.)
'Murica.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/07/1290285/-Americans-who-don-t-know-where-Ukraine-is-are-most-eager-to-bomb-it
by Hunter
The results of this poll are what we mean when we say 'Murica.
We wanted to see where Americans think Ukraine is and to learn if this knowledge (or lack thereof) is related to their foreign policy views. We found that only one out of six Americans can find Ukraine on a map, and that this lack of knowledge is related to preferences: The farther their guesses were from Ukraine’s actual location, the more they wanted the U.S. to intervene with military force.
Call it the Palin Doctrine: the less you know about something, the more sure you are that America needs to blow that something up in order to fix it (though fairness requires pointing out the same doctrine is at work in the House Republican response to health reform, in conservative suppositions that various scientific discoveries of the last century are merely plots to be dismantled, and in every George Will column on any subject written in the last fifteen years. It's a small toolbox.)
Even controlling for a series of demographic characteristics and participants’ general foreign policy attitudes, we found that the less accurate our participants were, the more they wanted the U.S. to use force, the greater the threat they saw Russia as posing to U.S. interests, and the more they thought that using force would advance U.S. national security interests <...>
'Murica.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/07/1290285/-Americans-who-don-t-know-where-Ukraine-is-are-most-eager-to-bomb-it
The "Palin Doctrine"!!!
11 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Who is more accurate?
Accuracy varies across demographic groups. In general, younger Americans tended to provide more accurate responses than their older counterparts: 27 percent of 18-24 year olds correctly identified Ukraine, compared with 14 percent of 65+ year-olds. Men tended to do better than women, with 20 percent of men correctly identifying Ukraine and 13 percent of women. Interestingly, members of military households were no more likely to correctly locate Ukraine (16.1 percent correct) than members of non-military households (16 percent correct), but self-identified independents (29 percent correct) outperformed both Democrats (14 percent correct) and Republicans (15 percent correct). Unsurprisingly, college graduates (21 percent correct) were more likely to know where Ukraine was than non-college graduates (13 percent correct), but even 77 percent of college graduates failed to correctly place Ukraine on a map; the proportion of college grads who could correctly identify Ukraine is only slightly higher than the proportion of Americans who told Pew that President Obama was Muslim in August 2010.
Does accuracy matter?
Does it really matter whether Americans can put Ukraine on a map? Previous research would suggest yes: Information, or the absence thereof, can influence Americans’ attitudes about the kind of policies they want their government to carry out and the ability of elites to shape that agenda. Accordingly, we also asked our respondents a variety of questions about what they thought about the current situation on the ground, and what they wanted the United States to do. Similarly to other recent polls, we found that although Americans are undecided on what to do with Ukraine, they are more likely to oppose action in Ukraine the costlier it is — 45 percent of Americans supported boycotting the G8 summit, for example, while only 13 percent of Americans supported using force.
