Rhetoric Is Unfairly Harming the Reputation of Our Military

On Dec. 4, the 2025 Reagan National Defense Survey was released, providing a window into perceptions of the military. The primary reporting about the survey has been of the relatively high level of public support (64%) for more Global engagement. Republicans, by far, show the greatest level of support for Global engagement at a whopping 79%. Secondarily, reporting has been about the low numbers for public “confidence” in the military. According to military.com, “The poll shows 49% of Americans reporting a great deal of confidence—a significant decline of 21 percentage points since the first Reagan National Defense Survey in 2018. Pollsters note that the current figure is roughly consistent with results from 2024.”

Left-leaning Mainstream media reporting about the public confidence has been unfair and alarmist. As expected, the insinuation was this was the fault of the Trump administration. The reality is that the Left’s continuous negative rhetoric and biased coverage of the military under Trump has harmed the military badly among solely Democrats. For our national defense, this must stop.

The examples of biased and alarmist media coverage of the Reagan poll include the following in Newsweek:  “This year, 49 percent of Americans reported a great deal of confidence in the military, down 21 points from 2018.” Reporting the high 2018 numbers is quite unfair, considering confidence in the military plummeted from those numbers by the first part of the Biden Administration with the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. Newsweek mentioned the current numbers were the same as 2024 (Biden Administration), but their impression is of the military suffering unique reputational damage under Trump.

What best explains the relatively low “confidence in the military” numbers is that the left has profoundly influenced Democrats against the military. From the same Military.com article: “’Breaking down the numbers, that flat line trend is sort of masking some partisan division,’ Rachel Hoff (Policy Director of the Reagan Institute) said. ‘Just in the last year confidence among Democrats has fallen over ten points and similarly, confidence among Republicans has increased around ten points. So, even though that trend looks stable, it is sort of masking some upward and downward trends on either side of the political identification coin.’  Republicans’ high confidence in the U.S. military increased from 48% in 2023 to 67% this year, whereas high confidence among Democrats fell from 47% to 33%. And while members of both main political parties expressed a willingness to recommend military service—at a clip of 59%, up eight points from the 51% who said the same in 2023—the numbers are mixed, as 77% of Republicans would encourage service versus only 43% of Democrats.”