America’s real problem: the ‘haters’

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Gallup is out with another poll today showing approval of Congress in the single digits. Trust in Congress Gallups to single digits:

Just 8 percent of those surveyed Dec. 5 – Dec. 8 rated the ethical standards of members of Congress “very high” or “high.” This shameful low puts them one point behind car salespeople.

But here’s what’s being ignored. Congress is viewed with such contempt that its trustworthiness actually dropped from a similar Gallup survey conducted just a week later. In the poll conducted Nov. 26 – Nov. 29, the federal legislature was viewed by 10 percent of the public to have “very high/high” honesty and ethical standards. Car salespeople were the ones with the 8 percent “very high/high” rating.

So, in one week, Congress fell two points and car salespeople ticked up one point.

If opinion polls were like employee performance evaluations (which they are not), it would be fair to say that these "employees" are beyond redemption; it is time for them to be fired. Just pack up what they can carry in a box, and have security escort them out the door. Goodbye (and good riddance). This is a national scandal.

The Fix column at the Washington Post today by Sean Sullivam and Scott Clement ought to make you question reality and your sanity. Haters gonna hate. But they plan to vote Republican.

We’re talking about the voters who’ve had it with all Washington politicians: President Obama, congressional Republicans and congressional Democrats. Despite their distaste for, well, everyone, when push comes to shove, these voters are lining up squarely behind GOP candidates for Congress.

Created with Datawrapper Source: Washington Post-ABC News poll Get the data

So, just who are the haters, and why do their votes matter so much?

They lean heavily Republican. Thirty-four percent identify as Republicans and another 38 percent are independents who lean Republican. Just 13 percent are independents with no lean and just 10 percent are Democrats. Seventy-one percent oppose the federal health-care law.

The haters matter because they constitute a significant and growing share of the electorate, due to sunken approval ratings for both Obama and congressional Republicans. Together they make up about a third (34 percent) of all voters. A month before the 2010 GOP wave election that swept House Democrats from power, the haters constituted only 28 percent of the electorate.

The haters’ clear support for Republican candidates means GOP voters’ grumbling about its party’s maneuverings in Congress – past polling shows the dissatisfaction is wide-ranging, from seeing the party as too liberal or too conservative — does not mean they are ready to abandon the party’s candidates at the ballot box. Quite the opposite, in fact. These voters will come home in the end, the data suggest.

Democrats may take comfort in the fact that, as unpopular as Obama and congressional Democrats are right now, congressional Republicans are faring even worse. Obama’s approval rating is an unimpressive 43 percent, and congressional Democrats are sporting an even more dismal 34 percent approval rating in the new poll among all adults. Still, that’s nothing compared to congressional Republicans’ lowly 24 percent approval rating.

But here’s the thing: Approval rating ≠ what voters decide to do at the ballot box. The haters’ alignment with GOP candidates is a testament to that.

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All told, though, Republicans have to be satisfied to know that, right now, the disappointment their core voters are expressing would give way to support at the ballot box.

In short, haters gonna hate. Republican candidates just may not feel it on Election Day.

The "haters" are largely the audience of the conservative media entertainment complex, which feeds them a daily dose of ignorance, fear mongering, and hatred. Tea-Publican candidates identify with the haters. So no matter how terrible everyone says Congress is, because of the tribalism of these haters, they will keep sending the very same people making this Congress so terrible back to Congress out of an unhealthy self-destructive pathology of hate.

It's time for these people to get professional help. Or at least to turn off hate radio and FAUX News. You will soon feel better, I promise.

If the haters really want to change and to get better, they need to end their unhealthy cycle of dependency on the conservative media entertainment complex and Tea-Publican politicians, and to elect a Democratic majorty. Look to California as an example of what is possible. New York Times:

"Before Washington, California was the national symbol of partisan paralysis and government dysfunction. … But over the past month, California has been the stage for a series of celebrations of unlikely legislative success — a parade of bill signings that offered a contrast between the federal shutdown in Washington and an acrimony-free California legislature that enacted laws dealing with subjects including school financing, immigration, gun control and abortion. The turnaround from just 10 years ago — striking in tone, productivity and, at least on fiscal issues, moderation — is certainly a lesson in the power of one-party rule. Democrats hold an overwhelming majority in the Assembly and Senate and the governor, Jerry Brown, is a Democrat. The Republican Party, which just three years ago held the governor’s seat and a feisty minority in both houses, has diminished to the point of near irrelevance."

California also now has a budget surplus with Democrats in control. California To Have $10 Billion Budget Surplus By 2017, Analyst Says. But for Tea-Publican obstruction and self-destructive austerity economic policies in Congress, the U.S. would also be growing the economy and moving towards budget surpluses.

The dysfunction of this Congress doesn't have to be this way. Stop electing people who are anti-government insurrectionists who want to destroy the government. They are only there to destroy, not to govern responsibly. Would you hire an employee who promised to destroy your business? I think not. Then why would you hire a politician who promised to destroy your government? Stop this unhealthy self-destructive pathology of hate.

Fire the Tea-Publicans. Vote Democratic. It gets better.