When the most recent New York Times poll asked respondents to select the word that best described the current administration's reign so far, the winner was "chaotic," chosen by 66%.
As the end of the first 100 days of Chaos approaches, an avalanche of new polls uniformly reflect majority and supermajority opposition to its policies and actions. Apart from the historic nature of this disapproval and opposition, a few things jump out at me as significant surprises.
The political professionals on both sides have for years told us that all the American voters care about is their own pocketbook, that they will support anyone and anything that makes the economy and especially their economic situation better. Only those who are comfortably well off will care about "special interest" issues, which the professionals defined as anything except bread and butter economics.
This was never true. But the extent to which these polls measure response to other "issues," and the size and frequency of demonstrations against Chaos, how they occur virtually everywhere, and through the eloquence of the signs the demonstrators carry--more eloquent than any politician, shows how untrue it was and, under mortal threats of today, how untrue it is now. And regarding some issues, frankly how surprisingly untrue.
Certainly people are seriously worried about the economy and the economic consequences of the Chaos tariffs. Some worry about the economic impact to themselves or family members of the deteriorating Social Security system and the threats to Medicaid, to Head Start and school lunch programs, and many other relatively small deprivations that add up for the people involved.
But some of the most lopsided poll results--with 60, 70 and 80% opposition to Chaos actions and policies--are in other areas, that don't necessarily or directly affect economic circumstances. And the widespread support for some programs suggests it is not their own economic benefit they are considering. These numbers not only reflect the depth of opposition to Chaos, they contradict the conventional wisdom on what people do and do not care about.
For the conventional wisdom is that people see no value in the federal government, but only a bloated and wasteful bureaucracy. They disdain universities as playgrounds of the elite. They see foreign aid as wasteful spending. They'd rather have a tax cut.
Perhaps it was seeing what destroying the federal government really meant to the services they depended on, or people they knew and people in their community depended on--people who are their neighbors and customers. But the epic and ignorant slash and burn devastation wreaked by the Muskovites turns out to be deeply unpopular, reflected as well in the hostility against Musk himself.
But it goes beyond that polarizing figure. It turns out people want Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid. They want Veterans to get the services promised to them. They want Head Start, Meals on Wheels and school lunch and breakfast support. They want their food tested and scientists working on preventing and treating diseases. They want National Park Rangers and environmental protections. They want the Post Office. They want libraries.
FDR's right hand man Harry Hopkins famously said during the Great Depression, "People don't eat in the long term. They eat every day." These are all everyday services. But the polls show more. People want long-term medical and other scientific research to be funded. They want a clean energy future. They want a robust Department of Education. They want friendly relations with allies in the world. They support Ukraine.
As for all those elitist universities, some 70% oppose federal government interference ( attempt to take total control is more accurate.) Who knew that 70% cared at all?
Of all the issues the professionals would have selected as having least popular support, right at or near the top would probably be foreign aid. But a vast majority of those surveyed in every one of these polls that asked the question, oppose the Chaos devastation to foreign aid.
What is remarkable to me about this issue and others is that the words "foreign aid" are a kind of abstraction. Giving money away to foreigners is the broadest interpretations. Yet somehow a large proportion of the voting public associates it with providing food and medicine to people in dire circumstances very far away. And they support doing that. Did any politician even know that?
Apart from the inflation-fighting he promised to do but never even attempted, Chaos believed he got elected for his anti-immigrant rhetoric. So the federal government is embarked on a reign of terror, using the Chaos version of the Gestapo to brutalize every brown person and foreigner from non-white "shit-hole countries" they can lay their hands on. So sure of themselves that they squirm and twist interpretations and outright defy court orders.
While a lot of voters may have bought the rhetoric about insecure borders, it turns out that most do not want to see immigrants brutalized, let alone people whose status is unclear or taken by mistake. They oppose Chaos immigration policies and actions, and they strongly support the Constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship.
And this may be one of the bigger surprises: they care about and support the rights guaranteed in the Constitution. True, not enough voters seemed to care enough about them before the election, even as they were warned that electing Chaos would put them in jeopardy. But the polls (as well as the demonstrations) show they strongly support the rights spelled out in the Constitution grouped under the term "due process of law." They support them being applied to everyone. This argues for a fundamental commitment to fairness, and an implied empathy--in those denied equal justice under law, they see themselves.
Moreover, the protest signs reflect what may go even deeper in this widespread opposition: a pained resistance to cruelty, a consciousness of compassion.
So where are Americans getting these views? I've heard many voices raised against the decline of civics courses in schools, and the absence of economics classes. Somehow however something has sunk in. We could list and speculate on how that information has become knowledge, but I think this is worth noting: that when it comes to current information on violations of due process and inhumane treatment, as well as on these other issues--well, it's not coming from Fox News. It's certainly there in the much maligned mainstream media. And it evidently is considered credible, trustworthy information.
Maybe it's out there in social media too, but it seems that the complete domination of the far right echo chamber is not so dominant after all, at least not at the moment. It's the mainstream media and everyone writing or talking or being interviewed in and on it, that's telling Americans what tariffs really do, and where the economy is really headed--and who is at fault. All of which is reflected in these polls.
The other intriguing element is that it is still very early in the process for much of this: for instance, the effects of the cuts and the tariffs have yet to be felt. But people are anticipating those effects. They see them coming. They are engaged. People are focused. And they are--in the word most respondents selected in an NBC poll--"furious."
In public perception, Chaos has gone from a wearily elected president to a monster in 100 days. Many voters may want change but they do not want chaos; they want humane and efficient and Constitutional stability. Words like "fascist" and "dictator" have gone from rare and generally derided in public discourse, to commonly spoken in the media and on the street (maybe even Wall Street.) All this sets the stage for Act II of this improbable and uncomfortably real drama. More on that anon.
No comments:
Post a Comment