By Col. William Connor, USA ret, The Citadel, ’90
Chairman, STARRS Board of Advisors
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.”
Shortly after Trump was elected last year, overall American confidence in the military was shooting up from the low Biden numbers.
From Association of the United States Army (AUSA) after Trump’s election:
“Compared to last year, Americans’ confidence in the military is rebounding. This year, 51% of Americans reported “a great deal of confidence in the U.S military,” which is up 6 percentage points from the previous survey.”
Since Trump was elected, the military has shown nothing but success in conducting its missions. In particular, the bombing mission to destroy Iran’s underground nuclear facilities. The targets were destroyed, no aircraft was lost or damaged, the mission wasn’t compromised prior to bombing. This is in comparison with Biden’s botched Afghan withdrawal, the worst debacle in modern US history.
In terms of recent actions of the military, recent polling shows 62% of the nation supports both the National Guard deployments to “blue” cities to assist with law enforcement, as well as the drug interdiction operations in the Caribbean. Clearly the nation has confidence in the military to conduct those critical missions.
Additionally, recruitment under Biden was the lowest in a half century, while under Trump it is at a two-decade high. This shows our recruits are overwhelmingly from conservative backgrounds based on the numbers.
The military was rebounding in the trust and confidence of Americans with Trump’s election and did nothing to lose that rising confidence.
What changed?
For many months the democrat politicians have been warning of the danger of the American military to fellow citizens with the National Guard deployments. The same hyperbolic defamation they use against ICE is also used against military supporting ICE or controlling leftist riots.
Seditionist Democratic Congressmen went public warning military members the “must not follow illegal orders” and greatly harmed public confidence in the military among Democrats. Their warnings insinuated military members are receiving (or will receive) illegal orders.
Their video created distrust among particularly Democrat civilians as to why Congress would feel it necessary to publish such a video. This was after Democrat attacks on National Guard deployments.
The Biden era low confidence numbers for the military in 2025 is the fault of the Democrats and media mouthpieces.
Our military has earned confidence.
Those serving follow the Prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 6:8) in proclaiming I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
Our military members answered the call to defend us and its time we defended them.
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Colonel Bill Connor (U.S. Army, ret.) served for three decades as an Infantry officer, including service as the Senior U.S. Military Adviser to Afghan Forces in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. A Distinguished Graduate of the U.S. Army War College, Bill is a book author who has published numerous defense related articles nationally and internationally. He is now an attorney and law firm owner and the recipient of South Carolina’s highest award, the Order of the Palmetto.
First published on Real Clear Defense
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