The comprehensive NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll released on Thursday makes one thing quite clear: the American people are smarter than congressional Republicans think they are. More specifically, they squarely oppose the government shutdown, blame Republicans for it, and may well punish them at the polls next year as a result.
Spurred on by extreme ideologues like Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah, and abetted by a GOP leadership under the baton of Speaker John Boehner who either knows better and was afraid to oppose the extremists or calculated the economy and credit of the United States was worth risking for a chance at political advantage, the House Republican caucus was talked into and threatened with primary opposition from Tea Party zealots to adopt a strategy of trying to force an end to the president's Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) by leveraging the specter of a government shutdown and even a default on the U.S debt if congressional Democrats and President Obama refused to go along with changes gutting their signature legislative achievement.
Despite presidential and Democratic congressional assurance that no such concessions in the face of threatened blackmail would be made, the strategy was employed. The GOP gambled that disaffection with the health law and the pain a shutdown would inflict on the country would combine with what international economists foresee as the likely devastation of the world financial system if America welches on its financial obligations to force Obama's hand.
Instead, Americans have seen through this transparently reckless gamble in which they, the citizens, are being used as pawns. The survey finds that by a 22-point margin, Americans blame Republicans for the shutdown. That 53-31 figure is twice as great as the 11-point (44-33) blame discrepancy the poll found in late 1995 when Republicans last engineered a shutdown, that time in an attempt to force concessions out of Bill Clinton. The public isn't buying GOP assurances that the strategy is not all that dangerous. By an enormous 46-point margin (73-27), the people consider it a very serious matter. That dwarfs the 16-point figure (57-41) by which voters in 1995 regarded the Gingrich-inspired shutdown of that day as serious. What is more, 31 percent say the shutdown has affected them personally, compared to only 18 percent last time.
As a result, since last month the Republican Party's favorability rating has dropped four points to 24%, the lowest ever recorded for a major American political party. Their unfavorability figure of 53% means that their popularity with the American people is upside down by a whopping 29%. By contrast, the Democratic Party is viewed favorably by 39% and unfavorably by 40%, a one-percent negative view to be sure, but 28 points better than their Republican counterparts. If congressional elections were held today, respondents give Democrats an 8 percent edge, 47-39, up from a 3 percent margin (46-43) last month. This would be enough to flip the majority in the House to Democratic control.
How has this affected the President? Remarkably, Obama's favorability/unfavorability has gone up since before the crisis. The survey measured a 5-percent deficit last month (45-50) which has turned into a 6-point endorsement (47-41) in October. His Affordable Care Act has gotten more popular too, as the gap between those supporting it and opposing it has fallen from 13 points last month (31-44) to only 5 points now (38-43.)
We must all hope, for the sake of the 800,000 people they have laid off, the millions whose needed services they have withheld, the thousands of businesses whose contracts they have interrupted and the potential damage they could do to interest rates and world financial markets, that the irresponsible ideologues driving the Republican train will come to their senses and bring an end to this sorry spectacle of political tantrum-throwing. In the meantime, at least it appears they have exposed their true nature to the American people, who have sat up, and with clear eyes, have taken notice.
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