If you’re going to shut down the government, do it because you think it's worth it. Also this week: The VRA, gerrymandering and the midterms; party favorability ratings update; + more!
I was out yesterday at No Kings. One of the interesting things was that I saw several locally prominent Republican voices. One holding a sign saying "My father didn't die on Omaha Beach for this".
It is worth it to say NO to an aspiring dictator. Both parties are bought and paid for but at least the Dems are willing to hand out a safety net, small though it be. We are really dangerously flirting with losing most, if not all, of our rights. If you think a shutdown is bad, take a guess what their ultimate plan is for America. It won't be liberty and freedom, it will be oppression and deaths of neglect.
BTW, I think Marjorie Taylor Green’s sudden interest in the ACA (her revealed preference regardless of her stated preference) shows us where the public is going to end up on the issue around which Democrats have hung their opposition to passing this budget, which allows ACA subsidies to expire. That is a middle class issue and we could see the polls flip after November when middle class voters learn their insurance options for 2026. Learning can be expensive but voters need to learn. Maybe they begin to desert the Republican Party.
The primary value of “what Americans believe” is just the overall preferences of self-identified affiliation with parties and what that might imply for vote outcomes. It is remarkable how split Americans have become. I thought the polling on issues was important, and specifically on inflation and cost of living (I don’t see here any polling on corruption). The cost of living numbers will continue to get worse over the next year, and that (along with corruption and Epstein Files) should be the focus of attention. Cost of living will become voters’ primary focus of concern as stagflation interacts with the extremely unequal distribution of income and wealth bites hard in the absence of the safety net that Republicans continue to shred. The victims increasingly will not just be “those people”. This is now a five decade decline and will really bite rural and middle class voters.
In the poll showing preferences for reducing the Federal debt, the takeaway was the percentage of Americans who want to increase taxes on the wealthy. But before reading the comment, my immediate takeaway was looking at all the issues the huge split between what Democrats and Republicans think. To me, it seems increasingly irrelevant to refer to what "Americans believe".
I was out yesterday at No Kings. One of the interesting things was that I saw several locally prominent Republican voices. One holding a sign saying "My father didn't die on Omaha Beach for this".
It is worth it to say NO to an aspiring dictator. Both parties are bought and paid for but at least the Dems are willing to hand out a safety net, small though it be. We are really dangerously flirting with losing most, if not all, of our rights. If you think a shutdown is bad, take a guess what their ultimate plan is for America. It won't be liberty and freedom, it will be oppression and deaths of neglect.
BTW, I think Marjorie Taylor Green’s sudden interest in the ACA (her revealed preference regardless of her stated preference) shows us where the public is going to end up on the issue around which Democrats have hung their opposition to passing this budget, which allows ACA subsidies to expire. That is a middle class issue and we could see the polls flip after November when middle class voters learn their insurance options for 2026. Learning can be expensive but voters need to learn. Maybe they begin to desert the Republican Party.
The primary value of “what Americans believe” is just the overall preferences of self-identified affiliation with parties and what that might imply for vote outcomes. It is remarkable how split Americans have become. I thought the polling on issues was important, and specifically on inflation and cost of living (I don’t see here any polling on corruption). The cost of living numbers will continue to get worse over the next year, and that (along with corruption and Epstein Files) should be the focus of attention. Cost of living will become voters’ primary focus of concern as stagflation interacts with the extremely unequal distribution of income and wealth bites hard in the absence of the safety net that Republicans continue to shred. The victims increasingly will not just be “those people”. This is now a five decade decline and will really bite rural and middle class voters.
In the poll showing preferences for reducing the Federal debt, the takeaway was the percentage of Americans who want to increase taxes on the wealthy. But before reading the comment, my immediate takeaway was looking at all the issues the huge split between what Democrats and Republicans think. To me, it seems increasingly irrelevant to refer to what "Americans believe".