Gallup reported yesterday, “Americans’ confidence in Congress as an institution is down to 10%, ranking the legislative body last on a list of 16 societal institutions for the fourth straight year. This is the lowest level of confidence Gallup has found, not only for Congress, but for any institution on record.”
What’s more, it’s a bipartisan phenomenon. Traditionally, when there’s a Democratic Congress, the legislative branch could at least count on some support from Democratic voters, and under a Republican Congress, the same would be true of GOP voters. But now that there’s split control over the chambers, every one of every partisan and ideological stripe feels equally comfortable criticizing the institution with similar zeal.
What’s weird is that I am not particularly unhappy with the Democrats in Congress. Not more than normal, anyway. I’ll take these versions of House and Senate Democrats over any that came before them. He don’t have any segregationists. The Blue Dog Caucus is decimated. The Progressive Caucus is a big, healthy caucus in the House. And we haven’t had this many progressive senators since before the Cold War started in earnest. That doesn’t mean I’m happy. But, for the most part, the Democrats are doing no more than the standard amount of stupid crap. I know that they can’t do anything constructive and I know why they can’t do it.
Now, some people on the right probably feel the same way. Their party has never been so conservative. But they can’t make any real breakthroughs on abortion or taxes or regulations or spending because they only control the House. So, that level of frustration can lead someone to condemn the whole institution when they are really angry and dissatisfied with one side or with the balance of powers.
The bigger problem, I think, is that most people don’t really know who to blame, or how much blame to assign to each side. But anyone who thinks that problems are going unsolved because of Nancy Pelosi doesn’t understand how the government works.
Even on the Senate side, which the Democrats control, the need to get 60 votes for everything when the Dems only control 54 seats means that the Republicans effectively have a veto.
Sometimes, it seems like a distinction without a difference. The House passes bill after bill that will never go anywhere. The Senate is incapable of passing any bills at all. The end result is the same. But the Senate Democrats’ inability to move legislation takes away their ability to put pressure on the House. And it obscures who is primarily to blame for the gridlock.
Ironically, I think Congress should have better polls. At the very least, they should have better differentiated polls. Democrats shouldn’t be so down on Democrats and conservatives shouldn’t be so down on Republicans. And there are too many people in the middle saying “a pox on both your houses” rather than assigning blame where it belongs.
