The poll I’m talking about wasn’t a one shot deal, it was a regular question, and it wasn’t short term, the evidence goes back a full five years.
Go back 5 years to the 2015 general election campaign. In poll after poll, when pollsters talked to just general voters, about politics in general, what was by far and away the #1 complaint from voters of all stripes and persuasions? They were universally sick of the partisan gridlock in congress! Many Trump voters, who otherwise looked sane and normal, gushed about one of the major reasons they were voting for Trump was for him to blow up partisan Washington, and get things moving again.
Spoiler Alert! It didn’t work. Instead, what ended up happening was that Trump’s entire first term ended up being a moot court class in how to conduct impeachment investigations. First, it was about Vlad the Imp helping to coronate Hos Lowness in the first place, and then El Pendejo Presidente running his own shakedown to get dirt on Biden from Ukraine. And the gridlock worsened.
In the 2018 midterms, it was once again the chart topper in the polls, only now there was some real frustration behind it. One thing was clear, Trump wasn’t the solution to the problem. The Senate stayed within Democratic reach for 2020, and the Democrats swept into control in the House. And they did what they could. They passed as much as they could of what they ran on, and then used GOP Senate obstruction to run on in 2020.
Ready for a curtain call? Again, partisan gridlock topped the charts for the worst thing about Washington, but there was almost a sound of desperation to it. But guess what? That was one memo that Biden got, right out of the gate. He ran on bipartisanship, and ending the gridlock from day one, and he had the 36 year history to point to in making his pitch. That, along with Biden’s almost overpowering sense of decency and normalcy when compared to Trump, easily turned the trick.
This is what I was talking about yesterday. Biden is going to get his $1.9 trillion Covid relief package through, which is wildly popular with the public. And after that, he is also going to be able to get through a $2-3 trillion infrastructure plan, which will also be widely popular. And he will do this with universal GOP obstruction.
But here’s what will actually kill the GOP in the House and Senate. Despite GOP House and Senate obstruction, Biden is actually getting bipartisanship! As I wrote in an earlier article, Biden did a world class end run around the GOP congress, taking his Covid relief plan directly to GOP Governors and Mayors, all of whom publicly gushed about it when he showed them what it would do for their constituents. In fact, West Virginia’s GOP Governor pleaded with Biden in the media to not be afraid to go even bigger. There was no such thing as “too big” in this crisis. And you can bet the rent that Biden will do the same end run when it comes to the infrastructure program, and quite possibly the $15 an hour minimum wage.
This is the reason that I led off yesterday’s article with the Donnie Wahlberg quote, I’m the guy doing his job. You must be that other guy! For close to a decade, voters are furious about the gridlock in congress. But the environment was ripe for finger pointing and blame gaming. But now, for the first time since Noah took up ship building, you have one side getting things done, and even Governors and Mayors on the opposing side love it. It’s kind of hard to point the finger at the other side when you’re the only ones shaking your heads and stamping your feet. Voters are finally starting to see obstructionism for what it always was. And good luck with that in 2022, especially if Biden gets us anywhere near herd immunity by Labor Day. Tick-tock, guys.
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The Covid relief bill, besides being popular, I think people realize how desperately it is needed. We can all see the extremely long food lines, across the country. I know there’s a lot of people needed rent assistance. His lowness wasn’t about to do a thing about it, besides open up the economy regardless of a raging pandemic.
Rs have made clear that they are the party of “no” – obstruction without alternate proposals, no platform, nada. That is not the way to legislate and Americans know it. His lowness didn’t care as long as he could advance his own interests. May the history books show no mercy to him.