Gallup finds that Congress has officially lapped chlamydia in the unpopularity department:
The current 7% of Americans who place confidence in Congress is the lowest of the 17 institutions Gallup measured this year, and is the lowest Gallup has ever found for any of these institutions. The dearth of public confidence in their elected leaders on Capitol Hill is yet another sign of the challenges that could face incumbents in 2014’s midterm elections — as well as more broadly a challenge to the broad underpinnings of the nation’s representative democratic system.
It’s in this context that the Republicans will choose a new House Majority Leader and House Majority Whip today. And it’s in this context that the orange man will seek another term as Speaker of the House.
You would think that more incumbents would be at risk, and Eric Cantor’s surprise defeat last week is a reminder that members may be more imperiled than they appear to be. Still, the public’s lack of faith in Congress, while well-earned, is advantageous to anti-government ideologies. The Republicans make sure that government doesn’t work well and then run on the fact that government doesn’t work well. It’s really the ideology of a permanent minority party that should only gain power sporadically and for a short time whenever the majority party screws up.
That’s how things were in this country for most of the 20th-Century, and we need to get back to that. An anti-government party will never govern well, and it’s only justified purpose is to hold the governing party accountable from time to time and introduce some needed reforms.
Notably, Congress was most popular in the 1970’s when the Watergate travesty introduced a new breed of reformist Democrats who cleaned their own house and held the executive branch to account.
It’s for perilous times like this, that ‘Gerry’ created ‘mandering.’
good one.
Watergate indeed was when congress worked and democrats were on the rise:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/watergate-when-congress-worked-20130516
However lets give Republicans their due: Lowell Weicker, Howard Baker, Hugh Scott and others were willing to make it work.
You wouldn’t see that today, but that’s your point.
Brian Schweitzer unfiltered.
Eric Cantor is a closet case? That’s a new one. There are at least 2 GOPers in the Senate, and a few in the House but I’ve never heard Cantor’s name mentioned as one. And DiFi a security state tool? He’s right about that. Wrong language but correct point. And interesting that Teahadist Rep. Mike Coffman came to DiFi’s defense this morning(via the Twitter machine).
If this is what Brian does, I think it is all good. Let him take some of the heat and attention off our A team. Please cut him loose on Rubio…I need A good laugh.
seems to me he was [obliquely?] referencing the guys in the senate as well if not primarily
As Pierce says, “I think we’re gonna need another alternative.” (The we being those that viewed Schweitzer as the alternative based style points without deducting points for his desire to scrape up all the surface coal in MT, burn it, and bury the CO2.)
He’s now down there with “I’m going to tell you what I think about the Negro” Bundy.
Is there any other possible candidate that would stand up to Big Energy? I don’t know. Would Hillary stand up to them? Doubt it.
Bernie Sanders miracle or nothing probably.
Do you want to wreck the planet or send Americans to die overseas. That’s our choice here.
Such a choice would be an improvement over what we’ve had for the past dozen years which was “wreck the planet and send Americans to die overseas” or the big, bad bogeyman, aka taxes, terrorists, and trashed economy.
Interesting that Schweitzer let that article happen. Does he not know how the early game on maverick candidates is played?
I would say that he not seriously running anymore.
I would wonder how he gets his gaydar readings validated. I know of no previous instance of his validly identifying a closet GOPer.
And yes, he can cut brush with the best of them.
I really can’t think of a better executed hit job–whether it was or was just a self-inflicted hit.
doubt it was self inflicted, I assume he was aiming for a couple senators.
I’m not sure how I would answer that. I have no confidence in this congress, of course–or actually, I have complete confidence that it will accomplish precisely nothing.
But Congress as an institution? I would say it all depends on who we elect, and I do have confidence that a Democratic House and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate would make a huge difference. Things started moving in California when we relegated the Republicans to super-minority status. Why not in Congress too?
But Congress as an institution? I would say it all depends on who we elect, and I do have confidence that a Democratic House and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate would make a huge difference.
Where are you going to get a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate that would also sideline Joe Manchin and Mary Landrieu? It won’t happen before 2016, at the earliest, but it would also require the DSCC to seriously contest Maine and South Dakota this cycle. Are they doing that?
Well, I’m not saying how realistic it is, just that it’s not inconceivable.
And also, of course, that the solution to our lack of confidence should not be to give up on the whole concept of having a representative government.
Unless its restructured as a parliamentary body, there’s no reason to have confidence in the institution.
That’s easy enough to say, but it isn’t going to happen.
I don’t think it’s true, anyway. The US Congress has done a lot of different things over the past 225 years, and at least some of them have been worthwhile.
Just because the system did not collapse in the past doesn’t mean it’s the appropriate system for the future. Whether they ever did something worthwhile or not matters not at all.
Maybe, but it wouldn’t be the United States anymore. You’re basically talking about scrapping the Constitution, and I don’t see how all the states of the current union are going to agree to anything else.
That probably even sounds pretty good to a lot of people, but I have my doubts.
The GOP has been selling “government is the problem, not the solution for thirty-four years. At an unconscious level, it’s a frame (to use Lakoff’s terminology) for a majority of USians through which they filter all political speak. Absent facts (an unfortunate condition for most voters) the GOP candidates manage to exude a persona closer to “None of the above” than their Democratic opponents.
Appealing to voters on individual discrete solutions has kept Democrats in the game. But selling trees individually is hard work compared to the GOP that’s selling the forest.
Once again the absence of Congressional District polling and the confused reporting by the media provide a misleading statistic. One would think this would be a horrible year for incumbents and a good year for challengers.
But that denies the perpetual “I hate Congress, but my Congressman is OK.” phenomenon. People don’t vote for “Congress”. They vote for a specific member of Congress. Only the members of Congress who gratuitously go out of their way to let their constituents know they don’t matter (cough-Eric Cantor-earthquake relief) are likely to be turned out.
And then there are the unopposed seats in which the public could not do anything to change things even if they tried. What used to be called a Soviet-style election.
All of that goes before gerrymandering and media and GOTV to try to either repair the damage of paint the other guy as worse. And turnout.
A corrupt and poorly performing me-too Congress does not encourage turnout.
What this generic dissatisfaction with Congress is likely an indicator or is turnout. I would like some clever statistician see how tight the correlation is between generic sentiment and turnout nationally. And include an analysis of variance of this correlation over the Congressional districts and then for election years; it can’t be too hard to get this data for all Congressional seats for the elections since the 1942 mid-term (that seems a good benchmark for a high-confidence Congress). I suspect that the analysis of variance will be more interesting than the regression line.
I’d like to see a poll that asks who votes for the candidate and who votes for the party.
Is anyone else watching the Biden?
It comes up that his view on splitting Iraq may have been wise; he’s the one that Maliki will listen to; he’s sent to Ukraine and Putin begins to defrost.
Biden is underappreciated outside the administration.
It’s not Biden’s plan but Peter Galbraith’s. Not exactly a disinterested party.
Many problems with it including who gets the oil fields and who gets to decide.
This statistic seems to indicate that the Republican party is succeeding in its goal.
Well, that’s a complete exaggeration, Boo. Chlamydia was actually less popular than Congress, but syphilis and herpes brought up the average.
Oilcan Mary has her Senate committee now. And she will only leave feet first unless she is unseated.