Republican Party Becoming Overtly Fascist

The day they throw Liz Cheney out of the House leadership will be the signal that the old Republican Party has ended. It will still be called the Republican Party but will actually have become the American Fascist Party. Arch-conservative though she is, Cheney at least has the integrity to call a lie a lie and the truth the truth. Edmund Burke wrote that a political party without a platform is nothing but a conspiracy to seize power. That is what the Republican Party has become. 

All their efforts are directed to gain power without scruple at any cost. Lying, cheating, stacking the deck, Orwellian double-speak, welcoming foreign intervention, even armed insurrection have become simply tactical options for them. When the truth conflicts with the party line it is the truth that must be eliminated, as Ms. Cheney will be next week. Their intent is clear from their own statements and from the numerous voter suppression and election-rigging laws they are passing at the state and local levels with frantic haste. From where they are now it is but a short step to bribery, suppression of independent media, assassination and coup. 

When one major party in a republic abandons adherence to fair play and the rule of law and turns down the road to the pursuit of power at any cost, the endgame is invariably the same. We have seen it all before. Yes, it is happening here. Yes, it is happening now. And unless things drastically change, the next time the GOP gains control of the presidency and both houses of congress at the same time they will not be as undisciplined and disorganized as they were under Trump. Next time they will complete the job.

Letter to AARP

Dear AARP:

I have received your letters regarding congressional moves to cut Medicare and turn it into a voucher program, and to fail to preserve Social Security at its present levels. As AARP members and as citizens who are 63 and 64 years old, my wife and I are just as dismayed and alarmed at these developments as you are.

Your letters appeal for money to assist your campaign to fight these outrages. But in order to secure our financial support I am going to require some more information from you.

First, your letters provide no details on what your campaign consists of. There is a vague reference to “push our elected leaders to do the right thing and protect our promised benefits.” Please explain how AARP intends to do that, and how additional money will be used in that effort: hire more lobbyists, buy TV ads, offer political contributions, or what?

Second, your letters appear to skirt reference to the elephant in the room. You say a “new federal budget introduced in the House of Representatives.” You refer to “powerful forces on Capitol Hill.” Let’s be frank. Those who introduced this inhumane and immoral budget are the Republicans. The “powerful forces” you refer to, who wish to take life-saving medical care and a bare subsistence pension away from vulnerable seniors are the Republicans.

I know you want to try to be a nonpartisan organization, but these are the political realties we face. Your current letter includes petitions for me to sign to my senators and representative. I have signed and included them in the envelope, but these are unnecessary. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris in the Senate and Scott Peters in the House are Democrats who strongly support Medicare and Social Security. They will do the right thing without any prodding. On the other hand, verbal appeals to Republicans will fall on deaf ears. They are the ones committed to cutting taxes and slashing Medicare and Social Security. They are the “powerful forces” who introduced the very legislation you rightly decry. No amount of jawboning is going to change their misguided devotion to their lamentable ideology. 

No, if you want to protect Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security your campaign needs to focus on alerting the American people about who is working to reduce or eliminate these crucial programs. You will not safeguard these vital benefits without defeating Republicans and electing solid Democratic majorities to both Houses of Congress. If that is the intent of your campaign then please let me know as soon as possible so I can rush my contribution to assist you in your efforts.  If it is not, then stop wasting my time and your efforts in a quixotic crusade

Do you really want to save Medicare and Social Security, or do you just want money to protect your jobs while paying lip service to standing up for us? Then let me know your campaign will be focused on electing our supporters and defeating those who threaten our very lives and my generous support will be on its way.

Steve Natoli,

12122 Royal Birkdale Row Unit 306, San Diego, CA 92128 

(559) 303-4671

Even GOP Congress Doesn't Trust Trump

Congress has now made it quite clear it doesn't trust President Donald Trump--and that includes Republicans as well as Democrats. The House voted 419-3 to toughen economic sanctions against Russia, North Korea and Iran. The Senate followed suit with a 98-2 vote, introduced by Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn). What's especially noteworthy about these bills is an unprecedented clause that the president cannot unilaterally relax sanctions on his own. Instead, if he wants to do so, the bills give congress the authority to hold a vote within 30 days to reverse the president's decision. Read the details here. 

This is highly unusual. Most of the time sanctions are imposed when a foreign nation is found to be doing such things as violating international law or human rights, committing aggression or supporting terrorism. Presidents are routinely given the authority to roll back the sanctions following an executive branch finding that the offending nation has ceased its objectionable behavior. In this case Iran's violation is in supporting terrorism, North Korea's are its nuclear and missile development programs in defiance of U.N. resolutions and its treaty obligations, and Russia's include aggression against Ukraine and its meddling in the U.S. 2016 presidential election.

Corker and overwhelming supermajorities in both houses are extremely concerned Trump might relax sanctions, particularly against Russia, on his own. He continues to deny or minimize Russian election interference and praise Russian strongman and civil rights abuser Vladimir Putin. The margins of these votes are a clear signal to Trump that if he vetoes the bill congress has the votes to easily override him and pass the legislation with better than the two-thirds majority required by the constitution. That a Republican-majority congress would pass a bill so limiting a Republican president's ability to exercise a customary function speaks volumes about how little even the members of his own party trust this president to act in the national interest when it comes to foreign policy.     

Republican and I Share Views at Forum

Last night I participated in a friendly and stimulating discussion at the Lindsay Cultural Arts Forum. About 40 people attended the event titled "Where's the Party?" I presented on Democratic/liberal perspectives and issue positions. My COS History colleague Stephen Tootle then presented on Republican/conservative beliefs and issue positions. Afterward, we took questions from the floor, alternating with Stephen answering first on one question and I answering first on the next. Tom Elson, a COS adjunct Philosophy Professor and retired minister, did a terrific job as moderator. His engaging personality and sparkling wit made the event a lot of fun. We supported our basic philosophies and positions, but also found areas of common ground.



In my 20-minute talk I showed my PowerPoint titled "Democratic Ideals: Meeting Human Needs with Compassion and Practicality." I discussed the values that underlie Democratic thought, things like justice, community, security and the four freedoms. (Enunciated by Franklin Roosevelt, the Four Freedoms are freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want and freedom from fear.) Implicit in the last two freedoms is the role of a democracy in taking proactive steps to foster prosperity and security in society and for its members. That is the liberal perspective that animates Democratic thought. I also highlighted Democratic achievements in civil rights and the economy.  Stephen related the underlying conservative affinity for tradition, suspicion of government action and desire to encourage individual responsibility that are important to Republican thinking.

There were some interesting questions form the audience. Most people at the forum were repelled by the success of Donald Trump in the Republican nomination contest. When I was asked for an idea  for reducing polarization, I mentioned the need to get the big private money out of the campaign process. Stephen told of his experience that in local government problem-solving, partisanship rarely seems to matter. 

We found common ground. One such matter was gun control, where he granted that if Republicans could trust that liberals were not intent on confiscating guns from law-abiding citizens they could go along with background checks and limitations on gun types. He remained skeptical on human-caused climate change, but said he shared the goal of making the air cleaner. He proposed that we could make incremental change on issues like medical care, where Republicans might favor programs for the truly needy. Our discussion was a good model of civil discourse in these highly polarized times.


  

The Real Donald Trump

There's been a lot going on the past few days. The terrorist attack in San Bernardino and the international climate change agreement reached in Paris are big news, and legitimately so. But I think it's time to directly address the phenomenon that is the candidacy of Donald Trump. I have commented on him before in these pages, but not with the directness and bluntness I feel is now necessarily called for.

Trump is a classic demagogue. His popularity is the encapsulation of every angry, mean-spirited, bigoted, xenophobic, violent, ill-informed, racist element in the Republican Party. The principal driving force of his support is fear, and he plays on it as adroitly as Segovia ever strummed the classical guitar. Trump's slogan may be "Make America Great Again" but his message is never about building up America or encouraging the greatness of its people. His stump speech instead begins with about half an hour of bombastic blather about how great Trump is, followed by another half hour of naming scapegoats and tearing them down. This began on day one of his campaign, when he announced that immigrants from Mexico were "rapists, murderers and thieves." He has spoken approvingly of the Japanese internment of World War II and "Operation Wetback," which rounded up Mexican-Americans, many of them natural born citizens, and expelled them. He has also demeaned women, Vietnam veterans, blacks and Muslims.  His misogynistic insults against Megyn Kelly and Carly Fiorina were followed by assertions that a black protester manhandled at one of his rallies "should have been roughed up." John McCain, who was tortured for his country for years as a POW in North Vietnam was a "loser" for letting himself be captured.

Trump has concocted a story that American Muslims celebrated the fall of the Twin Towers on 9/11. He says people who are entering the U.S. should be asked their religion and barred entrance if they are Muslim, and that Muslim citizens should be "registered" and have to wear identifying labels like the Jews of Nazi Europe. For months he kept the "birther" controversy boiling about President Obama's citizenship. Whether Mexican, woman, black or Muslim, the recurring theme is that people who are different are scary and must be delegitimized and eliminated. Trump's references to his opponents in the race are similarly pitched to the basest level of personal invective. They are "stupid," "losers," "psychos," "weak," "ugly," and "dumb," to name a few of the dizzying succession of schoolyard taunts he hurls at those with the temerity to run against him.

Based on the large number of contradictory statements he has made over the past many years in the public eye, it is impossible to tell whether he actually believes any of these things. I tend to think he probably does not. Rather, I think he knows exactly what he's doing: appealing to the fear, bigotry and desire for an authoritarian leader he knows is rampant in the Republican base with the design of riding that to the nomination and perhaps the White House. The Republican establishment is in a panic about Trump's popularity and his chances of garnering the nomination, but they have only themselves to blame. For years they have fed these fears in the base through their statements and their media outlets. They have succeeded in whipping their adherents into a frenzy of fear and hate. They have finally run up against a sharp and unscrupulous publicity hound who understands what has been created and knows how to take advantage of it. Instead of appealing to these dark intimations obliquely like 'respectable' Republicans do, Trump goes ahead and directly plays to them right out loud, and the haters love him for his 'honesty.' Not only the GOP establishment, but the whole nation now reaps the whirlwind.        

Hillary Turns Benghazi Tables on GOP

Hillary Clinton's testimony before the House Benghazi Committee last Friday was a remarkable display in many respects. She has rarely been more impressive, and a political show trial has not been more obviously exposed as a partisan witch hunt since the McCarthy hearings of the 1950s. You can watch C-Span footage of it here.

Secretary Clinton, in short, mopped the floor with her Republican interrogators. She kept her cool through a grueling 11-hour marathon of grilling, accusation and unfounded innuendo, answering each question forthrightly. Some tried to make the case she didn't care about the men who died. Several tried to raise questions about her email server, or the fact that she is friends with Sidney Blumenthal and got a lot of emails from him. A couple insinuated she ordered a CIA security team to stand down, or prevented military forces from flying in from Italy. (The CIA team got to the Benghazi compound in 24 minutes. Forces from Italy would have taken hours to get there.) Most questioners adopted an unprofessional tone of badgering rudeness rather than that of an objective panel trying to find new facts about what happened and good ideas about preventing the next such incident.

This was the eighth investigation into the Benghazi attack, but this is the only one that hasn't bothered to interview the military or intelligence officials involved. They have only wanted to talk to Hillary Clinton and her aide Huma Abedin. Their "investigation" has lasted longer than the Pearl Harbor and 9/11 commissions. It's even surpassed the Watergate hearings. Yet they have released no report and no recommendations. To give you an idea of how a responsible, bipartisan committee operates, here is a link to the Senate Intelligence Committee's report and recommendations on the same topic. 

Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy was the first to officially admit what everyone suspected all along, letting the cat out of the bag by admitting the committee was an exercise designed to damage Clinton's poll numbers. Watch him here. Republican Representative Richard Hanna of New York admitted the same thing. As a result, and combined with Mrs. Clinton's well-prepared and unflappable testimony, their plans have backfired. Following the committee hearing, her poll numbers have actually soared, as you can see here.

As usual, transparently mean-spirited Republicans have overplayed their hand. Instead of hurting the Clinton campaign, they have succeeded in providing her a forum in which she looked to the whole nation as just what they didn't want--presidential.

GOP Outs Itself on Benghazi

Good, we can stop with the pretenses now. The never ending investigations of Hillary Clinton over Benghazi have been an exercise in craven political theater, meant to damage the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. We have this on the word of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), the number two House Republican. The likely new Speaker of the House to succeed retiring John Boehner was attempting to curry favor with conservative Republican voters on the Sean Hannity Fox "News" program when he said this:

What you’re going to see is a conservative speaker, that takes a conservative Congress, that puts a strategy to fight and win. And let me give you one example. Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee. A select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known that any of that had happened had we not fought to make that happen.

If you want to see McCarthy say it in his own words, go here.


So the soon-to-be most powerful figure in the GOP congress admits these interminable hearings are a "strategy to fight and win." Commentator Michael Kinsley once observed that a gaffe is "when a politician tells the truth — some obvious truth he isn't supposed to say." McCarthy's "gaffe" has exposed this charade for what it is. There have been 8 investigations of Benghazi up to now, 7 congressional and one independent. All have exonerated Secretary Clinton of any malfeasance or negligence. None has found dereliction of duty or State Department conspiracy in play in the tragic killing of four American personnel there. Yet Secretary Clinton is about to be hauled before yet another one of these hearings Wednesday, October 22. At least now the public will know for sure what this is all about.

Record is Clear: Economy Thrives Under Democratic Governance

Democrats need to do a better job of touting their economic record. If the American people knew the truth about the effectiveness of the two parties in office it's hard to see how the GOP would win many elections. Let’s compare the economic results of the past 80-plus years under Republican and Democratic administrations. First, the Republicans. From Hoover to George W. Bush Republican administrations produced an anemic average growth rate of only 1.68% a year, with an unemployment rate of 7.3% and an average inflation rate of 3.9%.* Under the Democrats from Roosevelt to Obama economic growth averaged 5.1% a year, unemployment averaged 7.2% and inflation averaged 3.4%.  The Democrats, the more liberal party, outperformed the Republicans, the more conservative party, in all three areas, as you can graphically see in the figures below.  

All Administrations, 1929-2014, including the Great Depression.

                        Years      Growth  Unemployment  Inflation

Republicans       40        1.68%           7.3%            3.9%*

Democrats         46         5.07%           7.2%            3.4%

But what if we exclude the Great Depression as an anomaly? Even without Hoover, the other 36 years under GOP control from Eisenhower to George W. Bush have produced the following stats: an average growth rate of 2.53%, unemployment rate of 6.1%, and inflation rate of 3.9 %. If you don’t count the first four years of Roosevelt’s time in office, when the country was digging out from under massive unemployment figures accumulated by his Republican predecessor, the Democrats averaged a 4.22% growth rate (and remember, we’re not counting the excellent growth rates Roosevelt compiled in the New Deal years) with only 5.1% unemployment and a lower 3.7% inflation rate than under the Republicans. Put another way, for the last 73 years, the economy has grown 68.8% faster and unemployment has been 19.6% lower when a Democrat ran the country. Whichever way you slice it, liberal policies have produced consistently and decisively better results for the American people over a very lengthy period of time. The figures below make it clear.   

Administrations, 1942-2014, not including the Great Depression.

                          Growth            Unemployment           Inflation

Republicans       2.53%                    6.1%                       3.9%

Democrats          4.22%                   5.1%                       3.7%

Top Republican 2016 Contenders

It looks as though there may be a very large field of Republican presidential aspirants for the 2016 nomination. Quite a few will be able to make headlines and five or six could win primaries or caucuses in particular states. Much could happen to change existing dynamics, such as devastating gaffes or disqualifying revelations. But at this early stage I feel there are only two to really watch: Jeb Bush and Scott Walker.

Bush has name recognition, family political organization and a nearly inexhaustible fundraising network going for him. The former Florida governor (1999-2007) can point to executive experience outside of Washington, which in the world of Republican politics could help make this dynastic insider an appealing "outsider" in the minds of GOP primary voters. The money angle is a very powerful determinant in Republican primary politics. Mitt Romney had that advantage in 2012 and used it to bury Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum in negative ads on his way to the nomination that year. This time, it was the realization that the big money was going for Bush that led to Romney's abrupt abandonment of his developing third White House run. 

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is the challenger most likely to wrest the nomination away from Bush, if anyone can. Walker has three things going for him that make him very attractive to the base GOP primary voter. First, he's won three elections in a normally Democratic state. He was elected governor in 2010, survived a recall attempt in 2012 and was re-elected in 2014. Second, the recall took place over his success in gutting union rights in his state, another feather in his cap to conservatives. And third, he subscribes to the full range of conservative social issues positions on things like abortion, contraception, marriage equality and voting restrictions.  While he may not have pockets quite as deep as Bush, Walker is a major favorite of the Koch machine, and their resources are plenty.

All kinds of potential candidates will certainly make things interesting on the Republican side. Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz and even Ben Carson have their followings. But in my early handicapping, Bush and Walker are the ones to watch. Bush is the preeminent establishment candidate, with positioning suited to the national electorate and great resources to back up his run. Walker has the resources to compete and though less well-positioned for the general election voter, is dearer to the heart of the typical Republican primary electorate. Watch the polls to see how this starts shaking out. Bush is ahead in the early national surveys, while Walker has gained an early lead in New Hampshire.   

GOP Represents 1995 America, Dems Represent 2045 America

Democrats often like to say that their party is the party of the future and the Republican Party is the party of the past. An interesting statistical analysis in the Wall Street Journal shows that the adage is pretty close to being literally true. In the newly-elected 114th Congress the population profile of the typical Republican-represented House district mirrors the American ethnic profile of 1995, while the typical district represented by a Democrat looks very much like what the Census Bureau anticipates the American population will be in 2045.   

 

See the graphs below.  Click here to go to the original. Blue is the white share of the population, gray is African-Americans, green Latinos and purple Asians. Today's GOP district averages 74% white, 8% black, 12% Latino and 3% Asian. For the Dems it's 49% white, 17% African-American, 23% Latino and 7% Asian.

1995 America was 74% white, 12% black, 10% Latino and 4% Asian, remarkably close to the present average makeup of the typical Republican district. 2045 America, as the Census Bureau projects current population trends, will be 49% white, 13% black, 25% Latino and 8% Asian. That's close to spot-on for how the typical Democratic district shakes out right now.

 

The good news for Democrats is that these population changes promise to swamp the Republican Party in a demographic tidal wave. The good news for Republicans is that they may have some time to change their policy approaches before this effect fully sets in. As it is now, their strategy appears to be to double down on pleasing their white conservative base no matter how much it antagonizes minority citizens. 

Wall Street Journal Washington Wire

Democrats and Republicans in the 114th Congress represent two very different Americas that show a 50-year gap. Republicans represent a group of voters that look like the country in 1995. Democrats represent a group of voters that look like the country as it is projected to look in 2045.

White non-Hisp.

Black non-Hisp.

Hispanic

Asian

2045 America

50

Asian

100

114th House GOP

114th House Dems

1995 America

2045 America

Source: U.S. Census, WSJ Analysis 

 

 

 

 

 

 

National Appeal Can Help Hold the Senate

What do Democrats need to do to hold on to their majority in the U.S. Senate this year?  Much of the national political speculation for 2014 centers on whether Republicans will be able to gain a majority.  The present membership includes 53 Democrats and 2 independents who caucus with them, versus 45 Republicans.  The Reps therefore need a pickup of 6 seats to swing the upper chamber (a 50-50 split favors the Dems, since Vice President Joe Biden can cast a deciding vote in case of ties.)  The map below shows the national field this year.

Here's what the map means: Dark red are Republicans running for re-election.  Pink are Republican-held seats in which the incumbent is retiring.  Dark blue are Democratic senators running for re-election, and light blue are Democratic seats in which the incumbent is retiring.  Of the 36 seats up for election this year, 21 are held by Democrats and 15 by Republicans. The bottom line is that the Democrats are vulnerable since they have more seats at risk than the Republicans, and because quite a few of these are in conservative states.  I'll get into some state-by-state analysis on this in a later post, but right now I want to suggest a framework for a national appeal.

That appeal would focus on highlighting the difference between what the Democrats and Republicans have been standing on and voting for in the past few years.  A vague sense of impatience with the pace of economic recovery and a sharper frustration with gridlock in Washington is working against the Democrats as the incumbent party.  But an effective appeal would highlight the idea that Democrats have been promoting policies the people actually want, and that Republican obstruction is  the reason they aren't getting passed.  An appeal to the voters ought to go something like this:

Republicans oppose raising the minimum wage.  They think $14,500 a year for full time work, an income that qualifies you for food stamps, is too much.  Do you agree?  Really?  Republicans have voted to repeal health care 50 times.  You're going to vote to take health care away from 15 million people who now have it?  Really?  They even shut down the entire government over it.  Do you feel that was a pretty smart move?  The Republican budget passed in the House caps Medicare and turns it into a voucher program.  Is that something you would like to see in place when you retire?  Republicans have voted against every bill to require equal pay for a woman doing the same job with the same performance review as a man.  You're going to vote for that?  Really?  Republicans still stand opposed to marriage equality for gays and lesbians.  They've been fighting it for years.  Are you going to vote against that?  Now?  Really?  Republicans won't even bring the immigration reform that's passed the Senate up for a vote in the House.  Are you for keeping 11 million people in legal limbo in our country, for denying U.S. veterans a path to citizenship, for keeping our agriculture from procuring legal labor, and for making it difficult for America to retain the foreign students who earn advanced degrees at our universities?  And Republicans blocked sensible legislation to require background checks to make sure felons, terrorists and the violently mentally ill can't walk into a gun show and buy an assault rifle.  After all the mayhem and mass shootings in our country over the past few years, do you think that's in the best interest of the safety of the American people?  Do you really?

This isn't theoretical.  It's not just rhetoric.  These are all demonstrated positions the Republicans have not only advocated, but actually voted for.  Is this the America you want to live in?  Really?           



  

American People Not Fooled by Shutdown

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.