War, Israel, and Public Opinion

WP:

The U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran on Saturday, as President Donald Trump vowed to eliminate Tehran’s missiles and nuclear program and fuel a change in government. “I want a safe nation, and that’s what we’re going to have,” Trump told The Washington Post after announcing the start of “major combat operations.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the joint attack would last “as long as needed,” unleashing a conflict that threatens to engulf the region. As explosions rocked Tehran and other cities, Iran pledged a “crushing” retaliation, lobbing missiles toward Israel and targeting U.S. military bases in the Gulf.

In the past, the public might have had a predisposition to approve joint military action with Israel.  A new Gallup survey rasies doubts.


Benedict Vigers at Gallup:

Forty-one percent of Americans now say they sympathize more with the Palestinians in the Middle East situation, while 36% sympathize more with the Israelis. The five-percentage-point difference is not statistically significant, but it contrasts with a clear lead for the Israelis only a year ago (46% vs. 33%) and larger leads over the prior 24 years.

From 2001 to 2025, Israelis consistently held double-digit leads in Americans’ Middle East sympathies, with the gap averaging 43 points between 2001 and 2018. However, public opinion began narrowing in 2019, several years before the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza. The cumulative effect of gradual changes in U.S. attitudes since then has led to the Israelis no longer being viewed more sympathetically.

For the first time on record, as many independents hold a very or mostly favorable view of the Palestinian Territories as they do of Israel (both 41%). Over the past year, independents’ favorability toward Israel has declined six points, while their favorability toward the Palestinian Territories has risen by 10. Looking at a longer time frame, however, the shift is more pronounced on the Israel side. Since February 2023 — the last measurement before the Oct. 7 attacks — independents’ favorability toward Israel has dropped 26 points, compared with a 12-point increase in their favorability toward the Palestinian Territories.

Among Democrats, the Palestinian Territories have held an edge in favorability since 2025. This year, 48% of Democrats view the Palestinian Territories favorably, compared with 34% for Israel, broadly in line with last year. Republicans remain the most pro-Israel partisan group, with 69% holding a favorable view, though that figure has fallen 15 points from 2025 to its lowest level in over two decades. Meanwhile, a steady 18% of Republicans view the Palestinian Territories favorably, recovering from a record low of 5% in 2024.

 

Negative Net Migration

Many posts have discussed citizenship and expatriation.

Drew Hinshaw and Joe Parkinson  at The Wall Street Journal:

In its 250th year, is America, land of immigration, becoming a country of emigration?

Last year the U.S. experienced something that hasn’t definitively occurred since the Great Depression: More people moved out than moved in. The Trump administration has hailed the exodus—negative net migration—as the fulfillment of its promise to ramp up deportations and restrict new visas. Beneath the stormy optics of that immigration crackdown, however, lies a less-noticed reversal: America’s own citizens are leaving in record numbers, replanting themselves and their families in lands they find more affordable and safe.

Since the Eisenhower administration, the U.S. hasn’t collected comprehensive statistics on the number of citizens leaving. Yet data on residence permits, foreign home purchases, student enrollments and other metrics from more than 50 countries show that Americans are voting with their feet to an unprecedented degree. A millions-strong diaspora is studying, telecommuting and retiring overseas.

...

The U.S. experienced net negative migration—an estimated loss of some 150,000 people—in 2025, and the outflow will likely increase in 2026, according to calculations by the Brookings Institution, a public-policy think tank. The number could be larger or smaller because official U.S. data doesn’t yet fully capture the number of people leaving, Brookings analysts noted. The total in-migration was between around 2.6 and 2.7 million in 2025, down from a peak of almost 6 million in 2023.

The U.S. saw 675,000 deportations and 2.2 million “self-deportations” last year, according to data from the Department of Homeland Security.

A Wall Street Journal analysis of 15 countries providing full or partial 2025 data showed that at least 180,000 Americans joined them—a number likely to be far higher when other countries report full statistics.

 

SOTU: In Writing Only, Plese

Many posts have discussed the presidency.

 David Frum at The Atlantic:

Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution provides that the president “shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” The Constitution does not set an annual schedule for such information, nor does it require the information to be delivered in person. George Washington and John Adams started the in-person tradition. Thomas Jefferson ended it, both because it reminded him too much of the British practice of the speech from the throne that opens a session of Parliament and (very likely) also because he disliked speaking in public. Woodrow Wilson reverted to the Washington-Adams precedent. Then came television, and the modern State of the Union spectacle. The spectacle is founded, however, on an invitation from the speaker of the House. No invitation, no spectacle.

Given the intentional abuse of Congress’s time and hospitality last night, the next speaker, if there is a different next speaker, should consider very hard whether to extend another such invitation. The case for suffering Trump is that the tradition, if interrupted, may take a long time to return. A future Republican Congress will requite the next Democratic president the same way. But there’s also a risk of setting a precedent that anti-institutional Republicans get to smash things, which pro-institutional Democrats must then clean up. Maybe the only way to restore norms is by imposing some meaningful costs for breaking them. Next January, the next speaker could do everyone a favor with a letter that begins: “Dear Mr. President, the time has come for your State of the Union message. Please send it in writing in the enclosed envelope. Congress will give it all the attention it deserves. This is the method that was good enough for Rutherford B. Hayes, and, Mr. Trump, it is more than good enough for you.”

George Will made a similar point in 2013. 

The Longest SOTU

Many posts have discussed the presidency.

 NPR:

LGBTQ Estimates and Opinion

Jeffrey M. Jones at Gallup:

The Data: Nine percent of U.S. adults in 2025 said they identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or something other than heterosexual, essentially unchanged from 2024 but more than double the 3.5% measured in 2012. The 2025 estimate is based on combined data from over 13,000 interviews with U.S. adults.

Identity Distribution: Eighty-six percent of adults identify as heterosexual, while 5% do not provide a response. Among LGBTQ+ adults, more than half identify as bisexual, representing about 5% of all U.S. adults. Seventeen percent of LGBTQ+ adults identify as gay, 16% as lesbian and 12% as transgender, each accounting for between 1% and 2% of the U.S. adult population.

More Tariffs

Many posts have dealt with tariffs and trade. 

Ilya Somin at Reason:

Within hours of the Supreme Court's decision striking down his massive IEEPA tariffs in our case challenging them, Donald Trump issued an executive proclamation invoking Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 to impose 10% global tariffs, and then upped the rate to 15%. Prominent conservative legal commentator Andrew McCarthy has an insightful National Review article explaining why these new tariffs are also illegal. McCarthy and I differ over many issues. But we agree on this one. Here's an excerpt:

These new tariffs are even more clearly illegal than Trump's IEEPA tariffs…..

In Section 122, Congress endowed the president with narrow, temporary authority to impose tariffs "to deal with large and serious United States balance-of-payments deficits" (emphasis added). What Trump is complaining about — something he insists is a crisis but is not — is the balance of trade, not of payments. The United States does not have an overall balance of payments deficit, much less a large and serious one.

A trade deficit between the U.S. and a foreign nation occurs, mainly in connection with goods (which is just one aspect of international commerce), when imports are greater than exports. This is not really a problem for a variety of reasons — e.g., a trade deficit results in an investment surplus, the U.S. is a major services economy and often runs exported services surpluses that mitigate the imports deficit in goods, etc.

The balance of payments is a broader concept than the balance of trade. It accounts for all the economic transactions that take place between the United States and the rest of the world. Even without getting into every kind of transaction that entails, suffice it to say that foreign investment in the United States, coupled with the advantages our nation accrues because the dollar is the world's reserve currency, more than make up for the longstanding trade deficit in goods.

Our overall payments are in balance. There is no crisis.

Gorsuch on Tariffs, Deliberation, and the Separation of Powers

Many posts have discussed the presidency.

By a 6-3 vote, SCOTUS ruled that President Trump exceeded his authority under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose tariffs.

Justice Gorsuch's Concurrence in  Learning Resources Inc. v. Trump:

And, of course, it was duties on foreign tea that triggered the Boston Tea Party. J. Ellis, The Cause 17–18 (2021). Are we really to believe that the patriots that night in Boston Harbor considered the whole of the tariff power some kingly prerogative?

...

For those who think it important for the Nation to impose more tariffs, I understand that today’s decision will be disappointing. All I can offer them is that most major decisions affecting the rights and responsibilities of the American people (including the duty to pay taxes and tariffs) are funneled through the legislative process for a reason.  Yes, legislating can be hard and take time.  And, yes, it can be tempting to bypass Congress when some pressing problem arises. But the deliberative nature of the legislative process was the whole point of its design.  Through that process, the Nation can tap the combined wisdom of the people’s elected representatives, not just that of one faction or man.  There, deliberation tempers impulse, and compromise hammers disagreements into workable solutions.  And because laws must earn such broad support to survive the legislative process, they tend to endure, allowing ordinary people to plan their lives in ways they cannot when the rules shift from day to day. In all, the legislative process helps ensure each of us has a stake in the laws that govern us and in the Nation’s future.  For some today, the weight of those virtues is apparent. For others, it may not seem so obvious.  But if history is any guide, the tables will turn and the day will come when those disappointed by today’s result will appreciate the legislative process for the bulwark of liberty it is.