Do voters care about foreign policy?

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The Middle East is in crisis. The war in Ukraine grinds on. Conventional wisdom says that Americans don’t base their voting on foreign affairs. Will this year be different? Four New York Times Opinion writers discussed the debate for the podcast “Matter of Opinion.” Their conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Lydia Polgreen: The thing about the situation in Israel and in Gaza that I think is perilous for [President[ Joe Biden is that there are specific constituencies in his coalition that may just not show up. Because they’re really angry and upset about the way that Biden has comported himself. I look at the state of Michigan — which is always a battleground state and which he won very, very narrowly and where there is a significant Arab American vote. Just seeing interviews with Muslim voters in swing states saying, like, “I’ve never in my life been a single-issue voter, but now I’m a single-issue voter, and this is my issue.” But it’s clear that there are other voters who really like Biden’s staunch support of Israel and that will politically be important for him. But I do think that in ways specific to this situation, it’s likely to play out domestically in what’s going to be a very close election.

Michelle Cottle: It goes beyond the Arab American community. This has become a part of American culture wars. You have younger voters, younger progressives in particular — they talk about this as a defining issue as whether or not they support Biden. It has become like an international version of Black Lives Matter, to some degree. It has just kind of folded itself into other really, really hot-button issues, domestically.

Ross Douthat: This is sort of implicit in what you are saying, but for the left, the most likely scenario is that this is about depressing Biden’s share of the vote, right? There is some talk where people are saying, “Oh, you know, Arab Americans might vote for Donald Trump,” which — I think there’s a version of reality, Earth 17, where that could happen.

I don’t think [former President and current Republican candidate] Trump cares personally, particularly, about the Israel-Palestinian conflict. But I think the politics of it will just lead him to be sufficiently pro-Israel — that what will end up happening is, if there’s a problem for Biden, it’s a problem with voters being disillusioned and staying home or, in some cases, with younger progressive voters voting for [independent presidential candidate] Cornel West or [Green Party candidate] Jill Stein.

Carlos Lozada: Part of what I find interesting about this debate is that, to me, it gets to the heart of what foreign policy is for, what it’s all about. There are people who see American foreign policy as mainly a means of national security, like protecting the American people from foreign threats, protecting your allies, securing the border, controlling immigration. In this world, for instance, Ukraine doesn’t matter.

Then there are Americans who see foreign policy mainly as a way to project and spread American values or what they believe should be American values — human rights or freedom or prosperity. In this world, supporting Ukraine can be urgent. In this world, you become a single-issue voter over what’s happening in Gaza. So it’s not just how people feel about this part of the world; it’s also what they think American power is for.

Douthat: But generally, I think the second group tends to be much smaller than the first group. The kind of people who affirmatively care about using U.S. power to shape events in distant lands — they’re a more elite or well-educated, very politically engaged group. Whereas the group that are sort of natural isolationists represents a much larger share of the country. And I think what’s happening in the border debate is not that people have this very literal-minded view of the federal budget, where it’s like we’re taking $5 from the border and spending $5 in Ukraine. Instead, it’s more of a sense of, “If we can’t trust our leadership to take care of our own borders, why would we trust them when they go and make policy about Ukraine?” — a subject about which people don’t care that much.

I think it’s more about the trust that is given to elites than dollars and cents, per se.

Cottle: Although there is a strain of the Republican Party that is actually making that exact argument, which is that they want to spend that money overseas instead of here at home. It’s a great political tool.

Douthat: Right. But I just think the money is not the real issue. I agree there that that’s the rhetoric, but it’s not about money. It’s about trust.

Polgreen: But a budget is a moral document, right? Show me what you spend money on, and I’ll show you what you care about. I do think it is striking, though, that there have been — and maybe this is just recency bias speaking — there have been moments in American history where collecting a coalition that believes in an idea of America as, to quote a phrase, “a city on the hill,” a beacon of freedom — that, I think, is an appeal that has been meaningful to Americans in pretty large numbers.

It might not be the main motivating reason, but I do think that Americans want to think of America as being a strong, virtuous country. If not, why would we be having these huge debates about American history and how we talk about America’s slavery and colonialism and all these kinds of things if we didn’t care about the fundamentally virtuous way in which America is perceived in the world?

Michelle Cottle is a domestic correspondent for New York Times Opinion. Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen are columnists.