Via the AP: AP Poll: Public gives Congress low marks
In the eyes of the public, Congress is doing even worse than the president.Public satisfaction with the job lawmakers are doing has fallen 11 points since May, to 24 percent, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll. That’s lower than for President Bush, who hasn’t fared well lately, either.
Bush has been taking heat over the Iraq war, his decision to spare a former top vice presidential aide from going to prison and his desire for an overhaul of immigration laws that critics said would give a free pass to illegal immigrants. His job approval rating in the AP-Ipsos survey remained virtually unchanged at 33 percent.
None of this should be especially surprising.
For one thing, there is general discontent with the government at the moment, mainly over Iraq, as such it is hardly a surprise that Congress is taking a hit on this count along with the President. Current public opinion is oriented towards a withdrawal from Iraq, and the President has balked at that notion. Congressional leadership has talked about withdrawal, but at the end of the day, it has acquiesced to the will of the President and so the status quo on Iraq has remained essentially unchanged since the current Congress was elected. One doesn’t need to be a statistician to figure this out. As such, Congressional disapproval is not about “surrender plans” as some would style it, but just the opposite: the lack of any substantial change on the Iraq policy.
It should be no surprise that the current Congress has now matched the pre-election low in popularity held by the previous Congress:
The 24 percent approval rating for Congress matched its previous low, which came in June 2024, five months before Democrats won control of the House and Senate due to public discontent with the job Republicans were doing.Just two months ago, 35 percent of the public approved of Congress’ work.
While the immigration debates clearly didn’t help with the GOP base, the main issue here is Iraq–and will be for the foreseeable future.
Second, historically the Congress is always less popular than the President so, again, this is hardly a surprise. When it comes to approval ratings, the public tends to respond based on their general sentiments about how well things are going in the country and to how well they think that the government is governing. Further, people in general tend not to like Congress (but they love their own members of Congress)–so general Congressional approval is almost fairly tepid even in the best of times.
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I have an alternative theory about Congress’ numbers. It isn’t about either a policy of surrender or about acquiescing to the President, but about both at the same time.
Essentially, Congress plays boths sides — they talk loudly about getting the troops out and etc., but they don’t take measures that would actually force that fight. They’re trying to do just enough to make it look like they are fighting the President without actually doing enough to tip the apple cart and force them to take responsibility.
And I think a lot of voters recognize that. If they were clearly anti-war or clearly backing the President (either), they’d probably see slightly better numbers just for consistency. Right now, their “straddling” strategy means that they’re taking it on the chin from both directions. Too much anti-war for some, not enough for the others.
Comment by Steven L. — Sunday, July 15, 2024 @ 1:18 am
I think that there is something to that. Indeed, I think that one of the reasons Congress normally has low numbers in the first place is that there is always someone who is being disappointed by it–it’s the nature of the beast. (Part of the problem, if you will, with Congress in general is that the leadership often says what it wants to do, but can’t always actually do what it says it wants to do, given the nature of the institution).
In regards to the war, I do have to wonder, given current opinion polls, as to the degree to which there is sufficient pro-war sentiment to move Congress’ numbers very much.
And, of course, the pro-war faction is in the base of the GOP, and the Reps are in the minority in the Congress at the moment.
But still, as you note, those folks aren’t going to be happy and certainly the anti-war folks aren’t going to be happy.
As such, the numbers are very much about Iraq, which was my basic point, even if perhaps I didn’t delve into it sufficiently.
Comment by Dr. Steven Taylor — Sunday, July 15, 2024 @ 9:30 am
I think that those of us who thought the new Democratic Congress would have the stones to stand up to Bush were greatly fooled (me included). Their first act of business should have been to file articles of impeachment against Bush and Cheney… not because it would have worked, but because it would have initiated the right kind of conversation about the war.
In addition our global credibility as a people is being loudly called into question, as well as the entire concept of a Democracy as a form of government. If this is truly a government of the people, for the people, and by the people then how are we being so easily ignored?
We voted our will and our legislators ignored that mandate! Democracy Inaction!
Comment by geekineer — Sunday, July 15, 2024 @ 11:55 am