Back in 2009 when Obama was pushing the Affordable Care Act (ACA), I recall Rush Limbaugh reporting gleefully that the latest poll showed that by a two-to-one margin, Americans didn’t like the ACA. Of course, what Limbaugh didn’t bother to point out was that of the two-thirds of the respondents who didn’t like the proposed law, half of them didn’t think the law went far enough in terms of giving people affordable health coverage. Now hold that thought.
Yesterday my wife and I decided to go out for an early supper. So, we got in the car and drove down to the large shopping area which is the location for at least 5 restaurants – Chili’s, 110 Grill, Chipotle’s, all the usual franchise crap. We got down there around 4:30, figuring that if people wanted to get out of their houses where they had been cooped up because of the storm, we would beat the dinner rush.
Every, single restaurant was packed. We were promised tables if we were willing to wait 30 minutes at one place, 45 minutes at another. I notice, incidentally, that the latest numbers published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) show that charges against credit cards used in bars and restaurants is now back to where it was in pre-Pandemic days.
So, if what we saw yesterday is what the BEA claims is happening nationwide, how come Gallup is reporting that only 17% of respondents in its latest poll approve of the direction the country is going in? And by the way, this survey is being promoted around the alt-right as ‘proof’ that the GOP will take back The Hill later this year and that Trump will easily get re-elected in 2024.
But if you bother to look at the details of the Gallup survey and keeping in mind that the questions are so open-ended that the answers can be interpreted in just about any way you want, the Gallup survey may not actually foreshadow problems for our side at all.
Why do I say that? Because take a look at the details of the Gallup poll and what hits you right between the eyes is that 39% of Republican respondents are satisfied with things, which is down from 80% during Trump’s last year. But only 7% of Democrats don’t like the way things are going these days.
So, under a Democratic administration, Republican voters are five times more likely to feel that the country is headed in the right direction than what Democrats currently believe. Which tells me that what we have in this survey is exactly what we had back in the days of the ACA, namely, that Democrats and liberals aren’t pleased with the way things are going because they want Joe to move further to the Left.
Want further proof of what I just said? The Gallup poll also found that only 4% of Democrats believed that the economy was the nation’s most important problem, but 25% feel that ‘government’ is in bad shape. What were the comparable numbers on the Republican side? Government was the big problem for 18% of GOP voters, the economy was a problem for 12%.
Over the last four years, I didn’t read a single analysis from the fake news media of how Americans think about government and politics that didn’t start and end with something about how Trump and his media allies were spreading the word, backed up by conspiracy theories, that government was ‘no good.’ Or at least it was no good whenever the Democrats were in charge.
So, now Democrats control both the Hill and the White House but meanwhile it’s Democratic voters, according to Gallup, who don’t like the way government’s being run.
Now you can’t tell me that all those Democrats who believe the country’s going to Hell in a handbasket will turn around and become Republicans at some later date. That didn’t happen in 2016 and it certainly didn’t happen the last time that Americans went to the polls, even if most of the Democrats who voted in 2020 actually were dead.
The chief reason Joe got elected was because everyone was sick and tired of Trump. And his comment last week that he would pardon the January 6th schmucks, only reminds everyone that he’s just a loudmouth putz.
Please stay safe, stay well, and just keep sending in some cash to the DNC.
You can also spend a whole, big $5.95 and buy my new non-fiction novel about the Big Score Gang around Trump.