Today's "culture wars" threaten perceptions of the military's political neutrality. What will happen to the military if the public comes to see it as politicized? Civil-military research has typically considered the effects of perceived politicization on confidence in the military, but has neglected other ways the institution may suffer. This study seeks to remedy this gap in the literature by using experimental survey evidence to link current public narratives about the military to both variations in public confidence and to institutional outcomes like recruitment and funding. I find that, when presented with information associating the military with today's culture war narratives, confidence in the military declines in all conditions, for both major parties and across a range of population subsets. Respondents further appear willing to sanction the institution in a partisan manner by way of recruitment, budgets, and oversight. However declining confidence is not a perfect predictor of institutional sanction, and willingness to step beyond low cost indicators of dissatisfaction is limited.
