Americans Can’t Make Up Their Damn Minds About A Possible Military Takeover

Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Despite the hell that Texas residents have been raising about the U.S. military’s “Jade Helm 15” training exercise and a possible military takeover of the Lone Star state, a poll released Tuesday found 65 percent of likely U.S. voters actually would like to have the military conduct such war games in their home state.

A survey released by the conservative polling firm Rasmussen found that just 16 percent of likely voters would oppose having military training exercises take place in their state, while 19 percent were undecided.

Yet 45 percent of likely voters also said that they’d be concerned the government would use military training exercises to exert greater control over some states, according to the survey.

The Rasmussen survey found that particular concern was partisan: 50 percent of conservatives believed military training exercises would lead to greater federal control of some states. By contrast, 67 percent of liberals and 58 percent of those who identified as moderates said they weren’t concerned, according to the survey.

Rasmussen polled 1,000 likely voters by phone on May 7 and May 10. The survey had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

Image via Shutterstock/Stefano Cavoretto.

Latest Livewire

Notable Replies

  1. To have captured a 33% share of “liberals,” I have no doubt in my mind that the question was phrased in a way that deliberately downplayed what the people in TX are really saying and treated it as sort of “do you have a healthy skepticism of the gov’t or are you a total gullible moron willing to be walked all over?” You know, as opposed to “OMFG IT’S ACTUALLY HAPPENING RIGHT NOW JUST LIKE I ALWAYS THOUGHT IT WOULD!!!” Anyone have time to look it up?

    “I tell you what it is. It’s your quote un-quote pollution control. I heard on talk radio you don’t even need 'em. It’s just the latest nazi government plot. Open your eyes, man, they’re trying to control Global Warming. Get it Global. That’s U.N. Commissars code for telling us what the temperature is gonna be in our outdoors. Let it warm up I say. See what Butchros Butchros Ghali Ghali thinks of that. We’ll grow oranges in Alaska.”
    DALE GRIBBLE, King of the Hill

    Yes, these fucking twats in TX are walking cartoon parodies of themselves.

  2. Avatar for meri meri says:

    Not the point. Not at all. All sorts of people believe really stupid bullshit.

    The problem here is that the elected representatives (and those pandering for a run at President) are openly advocating the stupidest theories they can possibly dredge out of their asses.

    And that’s a problem.

  3. This is all just a dream. This MUST be a dream…

  4. a poll released Tuesday found 65 percent of likely U.S. voters actually would like to have the military conduct such war games in their home state.

    SHEEPLE.

  5. Any state that would refuse letting the military train in their state is basically saying no to free money. Restaurants, bars, hotels…they would all make money from military training.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

12 more replies

Participants

Avatar for system1 Avatar for meri Avatar for fargo116 Avatar for chammy Avatar for ctvoter Avatar for sniffit Avatar for sonsofares Avatar for pbj_diddy Avatar for korvu Avatar for boidster Avatar for exspectator Avatar for khaaannn Avatar for dnl Avatar for bearsense Avatar for whatithink

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: