Willie R. Tubbs, FISM News
Americans have little taste for complimentary talk about Russian President Vladimir Putin but largely oppose restricting Russian military access to Ukrainian airspace, a new poll indicates.
In the most recent poll conducted by Quinnipiac University, among the more respected public opinion research entities in academia, 54% of respondents said they opposed NATO enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine. Just 32% were in favor of such a move, which would necessarily draw NATO nations into an active war against Russia.
“Watching with horror from afar, Americans are resolute in staying a course that will prevent a widening of the war,” Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Tim Malloy said.
When it comes to Putin, respondents unsurprisingly showed largely unfavorable attitudes. Sixty percent of the Americans polled said they felt Putin was mentally unstable and 57% expressed a negative attituded toward American political and media figures who have been complimentary to Putin.
“Some career advice from American voters to the politicians, pundits, and opinion performers…there may be enduring consequences for admiring the world’s most reviled leader,” Malloy said.
The Quinnipiac Poll, which has been used to gauge public opinion on all manner of topics since the late 1980s, also contained information that will be of a concern for Democrats.
When polled about gas prices, 64% of respondents said they viewed the issue as either a very serious or somewhat serious problem, with 21% saying it wasn’t “too serious a problem” and 14% saying it wasn’t a problem at all.
Forty-five percent of respondents said they’ve had to cut back on household spending because of a spike in gas prices. This finding is consistent with findings from a recent AAA survey. Just under 60% of respondents to that poll said $4-a-gallon gas marked the point after which they’d have to adjust their lifestyle.
An overwhelming majority, 80%, of the AAA respondents indicated they would drive less.
Respondents to the Quinnipiac poll gave President Joe Biden an overall approval rating of 38%, which is consistent with the president’s performance in other polls. Perhaps more telling, just 49% of respondents approved of Biden’s handling of the Ukraine crisis.
The most demonstrable result in the poll was that most Americans, 75%, favor the U.S. doing everything it can to help Ukraine short of joining the war.