alt Hacker NewsApparently 37.7% of Americans, so roughly 116 million people, support the war. I'm not sure "this was a good idea" was a the exact question though.
https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/54454-most-americans-oppos...
https://www.natesilver.net/p/iran-war-polls-popularity-appro...
Clearly this war isn't popular but that's a far cry from saying there's no debate. Like many other topics/questions we're seeing people following their tribe and bubbles rather than actual debating.
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I also think there was an initial “euphoria” (I guess) during the initial days of the campaign.
People I know (even Iranian expats) were excited to see the regime get hammered and there was hope for possibility of change (and also a little bloodlust)… but I think as the war drags on and the US is exposed to be in an un-winnable mess, sentiment will continue to sour.
This has already started to happen in Nate Silver’s post you linked.
>>How many people outside of the admin and the dwindling hardcore trump base actually thought this was a good idea?
> Apparently 37.7% of Americans,
These are the same thing. The MAGA base is fracturing and the polls are showing that with the very number you are using as a retort.
Your first link says 28% support it, so somewhere between 28 and 37%. I do wonder how many of those people could find Iran on a map, though I suppose you could ask the same about the people who are against it.
75 million using the YouGov number and just under 100 million using the Nate Silver average. (I think you must have used the more Trump-favorable number AND included children in your computation, which is not reasonable.)
Also worth noting that Nate Silver's measure has been declining for almost 3 weeks, the majority of the duration of the invasion.
Before the invasion, a University of Mariland poll says 55 million and a YouTov poll says 71 million support. These are useful numbers because we know there's a rally around the flag effect that distorts thinking during a conflict.
https://criticalissues.umd.edu/feature/do-americans-favor-at... https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/54158-few-americans-suppor...
20-25% of Americans would support Trump pulling his pants down and taking a shit on the floor in the oval office on live TV. These people's opinions shouldn't be taken into account or respected in these discussions.
I would question to what extent repeating propaganda, qualifies as debate.
Even if you do say that it qualifies, it doesn't qualify as productive debate.
There is really no productive debate to be had here. Even if you think that Iran needed to be bombed, it took absurd incompetence to start doing so before planning how to handle asymmetric warfare against drones in an affordable way.