Americans say: "I would do anything for Ukraine (but I won't do that)."

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Of all the images that have emerged from the devastating invasion in Ukraine, the most searing one seems to be the image of a pregnant woman, bloodied and grievously injured, being carried out of a bombed Mariupol maternity ward on a stretcher.

Per the Associated Press:

As some Codebook readers may know, I’m expecting a baby this summer. It will be my first, and I’m nervous and excited and afraid and all the many emotions that go along with that. Last week, while taking a class to learn about the process of childbirth, I couldn’t stop thinking about this image and the fate of this woman and her child. The class emphasized that different women will have different preferences around birth, like whether or not to use pain-relieving medication, to have lights and noise kept low, to include sights and sounds and smells and sensations they may find soothing and so on…but I just couldn’t stop thinking about the women who, in the midst of all of this, were being bombed by Russian forces.

I’m not alone in being completely unable to shake this image and this woman’s story from my mind. Two weeks ago, I conducted a focus group of 10 voters from across the United States as well as the political spectrum on behalf of The New York Times. I asked the participants what they had seen, read or heard about the conflict in Ukraine that had stuck out the most in their minds.

The Times’ abridged transcript highlights the answer from a participant named Aleeta, a 31-year-old Black woman from Georgia:

While not in the abridged transcript, in the full audio of the session (around 16 minutes in), another participant, a 31-year-old Latina woman from Texas named Katherine, mentioned the same thing but in greater detail:

“There was a photo of a woman, like, laying on a stretcher, she has her hands on her stomach and there was blood everywhere. And then I read an article a couple days later that she’d actually died. So that’s one thing that has kind of stuck with me from the war.”

The world is full of terrible tragedy, but something about the enormity of the human suffering caused by Vladimir Putin’s unjust and horrific invasion of Ukraine has cut through the usual noise and chatter of our politics. It has done so to such an extent that the partisan divides on Ukraine are negligible compared to the divides on nearly every single other issue in the news.

Typically, matters relating to foreign affairs or global security struggle to break through and make an impact on how Americans think about the world and our role in it. But every so often, something happens that is so horrifying that we cannot look away.

We saw something similar around the debacle of our withdrawal from Afghanistan. Images of young men clinging to airplanes as they took off and fears about the fate of the young women who would be subject to Taliban brutality (and who still largely have not been allowed back to school) left Americans feeling heartbroken. The deaths of the 13 U.S. servicemembers further underscored the sense of hopelessness and loss.

When I think about how those 10 voters in my Times focus group talked about Ukraine, I was struck by how much the Republicans in the group sounded like the Democrats—a phenomenon that also plays out in polls on the subject. (Read the transcript and you’ll have trouble telling who is who, an incredible rarity these days in any focus group on any politically adjacent subject.)

I was struck by how much they agreed that Vladimir Putin is a monster and Volodymyr Zelensky is a hero and a model of leadership for the world. There was no “both-sides”-ing the conflict. There were numerous references to historical patterns, villainous leaders willing to commit atrocities, and more than a few direct mentions of how this conflict brought to mind Hitler and World War II.

As one participant, Jamie, put it:

But most of all, I was struck by how helpless they all seemed to feel to stop it.

I began the groups by asking respondents to give a word to describe their feelings about what is happening in Ukraine. Words like “terrified” and “angry” came up. But the response that seemed to be echoed by participants throughout the group was one that came from a participant named Charles:

As The New York Times writeup of the group noted:

Depending on how you ask the question, in surveys it seems clear Americans want us to do almost anything we can to support Ukraine. Democrats are broadly supportive of any action proposed by President Biden and think that American interests are at stake. And though Republicans are more skeptical of the idea that the Ukraine situation has a direct impact on the U.S., they are among the most eager to see the United States “do more.”

In the latest Echelon Insights polling on this, we found that even though Republicans were more likely to say they felt we should be focused at home rather than abroad, nearly half think we are “not doing enough” to help Ukraine. Only 11% think we are doing too much.

A recent poll from the Associated Press/NORC found an even greater appetite for more “toughness”; when Americans overall were asked about whether Biden has been too tough on Putin, about right, or not tough enough, a majority—54%—say he has not been tough enough.

Yet that same poll shows a sagging percentage of Americans feel we should have a “major role” in the conflict, falling to 32% last week from a high of 40% one month earlier. Nearly half—49%—say we should only have a “minor role.” And while Americans are broadly supportive of sanctions on Russia, sending weapons to support Ukrainian forces, and even sending American troops to shore up the defenses of our NATO allies, only 22% said they would favor sending U.S. troops into the conflict in Ukraine.

This sentiment came through loud and clear in the focus group I moderated, as participants Jamie and Nick each stated succinctly:

Recall that Jamie is the same participant who had earlier warned that allowing Putin to roll through Ukraine could lead him to become “another Hitler.”

The voices on the political right who are trying to make the case that we should back away from the conflict in Ukraine, stop poking Putin in the eye and what have you are absolutely on the wrong side of public opinion, even within the right. But the broad bipartisan consensus that says we ought to be tougher and do more also has its limits when it gets down to the specifics of what we ought to do.

As the conflict wears on, worries emerge that seizing yachts and sending Javelins might not be enough, even in the face of a shockingly incompetent Russian military. Only one-third of Americans think Ukraine is winning the war right now, according to my firm’s polling. Although there’s a desire to “do something,” there’s a feeling of helplessness around what that might be. (I recommend this great Jane Coaston column about how the impulse to “do something” is leading to things like the ban on Russian tennis players at Wimbledon this year.)

Americans are not particularly concerned about being too tough or too antagonistic with Putin. They don’t view this conflict as one characterized by shades of gray where we shouldn’t pick sides or had best stay out of it. And so U.S. leaders will feel they have a free hand to pull almost any levers they have—sending more money and more materiel, resuming a diplomatic presence in Ukraine, ostracizing Putin on the world stage, and so on.

But clearly there’s one lever Americans are not yet comfortable pulling, even as the atrocities continue and the bodies of the innocent pile up in mass graves across Ukraine.

Per Wall Street Journal reporting:

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Cover Photo: Aleina (L) and her husband (R) walk in a basement of maternity hospital as sirens warning for air raids in Mykolaiv, on March 14, 2022. - Almost half of the 49 women have had to give birth in the basement since 24 February. (Photo by BULENT KILIC / AFP via Getty Images)