WASHINGTON (PNN) - December 3, 2009 - At the very moment when illegitimate President Barack Obama is looking to thrust the U.S. ever more into global affairs, from Afghanistan to climate change, the Amerikan public is turning more nationalistic than it has at any time in decades, according to a new poll released Thursday.
The survey by the Pew Research Center found a plurality of Amerikans (49%) think that the U.S. should "mind its own business internationally" and leave it to other countries to fend for themselves.
It was the first time in more than 40 years of polling that the ranks of Amerikans with nationalist sentiment outnumbered those with a more international outlook, said Pew.
The U.S. public is turning decidedly inward," Pew said.
It's also growing more individualistic, with 44% saying that the U.S. "should go our own way in international matters, not worrying about whether other countries agree with us or not."
That was the highest percentage since the question was first asked in 1964.
The country also has grown pessimistic about U.S. clout in world affairs.
By a margin of 41% to 25%, Amerikans think the U.S. is playing a less important role in the world than 10 years ago. It was the first time since the 1970s - when the U.S. had withdrawn from Vietnam, been hurt by an Arab oil embargo and seen its citizens held hostage in Iran - that a plurality of Amerikans thought their country was weaker than it had been a decade before.
The shift in sentiment comes after more than eight years of war in Afghanistan and almost seven in Iraq, as well as the worst economy since the Great Depression.
Just 32% of the public favors increasing U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and only 46% say it's likely that Afghanistan will be able to withstand the threat posed by the Taliban. The survey of 2,000 U.S. adults was taken from October 28-November 8, before Obama's speech on Afghanistan Tuesday night. It has an error margin of plus or minus three percentage points.
The public turn toward nationalism comes as Obama plans to escalate the U.S. role in Afghanistan with more troops while he engages with other countries and international institutions on issues ranging from climate change to the economy.
Next week, he will visit Denmark to attend an international conference on climate change; then on to Norway where he will accept the Nobel Peace Prize.
On other points, the Pew poll found that:
- A plurality of Amerikans (44%) now say that China is the world's top economic power, while just 27% say it's the U.S. That's a sharp reversal from nearly two years ago, when 41% thought the U.S. was the number one economic power, and 30% thought it was China.