54% of Americans Want Congress To Have President Obama’s Back Against ISIS

A new NBC News poll revealed that a majority of Americans want Congress to vote in favor of President Obama use of force authorization against ISIS.

Via NBC News:

When told these details, 54 percent of Americans say they want their member of Congress to vote for this authorization. This includes a majority of Democrats (60 percent), Republicans (52 percent) and independents (51 percent).

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Just 32 percent of all respondents want their member of Congress to vote against such an authorization.

….

– two-thirds of Americans (66 percent) believe the United States and its allies will be able to defeat ISIS;
– only 40 percent think Obama’s proposed authorization will receive bipartisan support in Congress;
– and a plurality of respondents prefer sending a limited number of U.S. forces to combat ISIS (40 percent), versus a large number (26 percent) or no ground forces at all (26 percent).

The support for the president’s use of force authorization, among a population that is suffering from war fatigue, indicates the level of outrage over the terrorists’ brutal strategy of killing their hostages. Secondly, the president’s message of no more combat troops in the Middle East appears to be working. The president has often repeated that he has no interest in sending US combat troops to fight ISIS.

There are two congressional arguments that are hovering over the president’s request for the use of force authorization. Democrats are concerned that the language in the president’s proposed resolution is too vague. They are also not interested in repeated the same mistake that they made with the 2002 use of force authorization that turned into Bush wars run amok.

Republicans are opposing the authorization because they want to send US combat troops to fight ISIS. The concerns of Democrats can be addressed by tightening up the language in the resolution, but some Republicans won’t support anything less than the opened ended possibility of more war in the Middle East.

President Obama has the majority of the American people on his side. It’s up to Congress to stop tripping over their own two feet and get something done.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association