Not many people know that it was a mere 33% of the population supported the invasion of Iraq without UN authorization. Of course our government did it anyway with bipartisan support.
There was a lot of frustration with the war. The Democrats swept into power in 2006 first and foremost due to public opposition to the war and the perception that the Democrats were against the war. Despite that policies remained unchanged.
Bush gave us a banker bailout. This poll indicated it was supported by 7% of the population. The contempt for public opinion here is pretty striking.
Obama was recently rebuked by Congress for some light hints that suggest the US frowns on Israeli settlement construction, though Obama isn't forbidding the construction. This despite the fact that Americans opposes settlement construction by a margin of 49 to 22% with the remainder undecided.
Americans for a long time have supported a public health care option, whether single payer or otherwise. See here and here. This view has been disregarded for years. In fact Kerry wouldn't even talk about it in 2004 because a public plan was "politically impossible." That's true. It only had overwhelming popular support, but that's not what makes something politically feasible. Now Obama has given us a half assed solution. Mandated purchase of rip off private insurance.
Obama's record on war and civil liberties mirrors Bush as I've already outlined. This is contrary to the desires of those that worked hardest to get him elected. Naturally they feel betrayed.
Cheney slipped up a while back and let us know how this really works.
CHENEY: On the security front, I think there’s a general consensus that we’ve made major progress, that the surge has worked. That’s been a major success.
RADDATZ: Two-third of Americans say it’s not worth fighting.
CHENEY: So?
RADDATZ So? You don’t care what the American people think?
CHENEY: No. I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls.
The public is utterly irrelevant to our current politicians. It's no surprise that the public distrusts government.
5 comments:
its not. Look at the polls in January 2003, for example, polls fluctuated, with the average showing a support for invasion. This also matches my recollection as well.
There was a lot of frustration with the war. The Democrats swept into power in 2006 first and foremost due to public opposition to the war and the perception that the Democrats were against the war. Despite that policies remained unchanged.
Except for the fact that Obama's job approval on foreign policy is higher than his domestic issues%. In other words, you may think he betrayed the American people and why they "really" voted him in office, but he seems to know what the American people want much better.
Bush gave us a banker bailout. This poll indicated it was supported by 7% of the population. The contempt for public opinion here is pretty striking.
This one is more accurate. I do believe that public opinion was strongly against bailouts. But what is a politician to do? He has to worry about election year, and thats atleast a year away for most of them. So you have two options:
1. You refuse to pass the bailouts but risk that the economy, when you are up for re-election, will be alot worse than it otherwise would be.
Or
2. Pass the bailout, take a hit in the polls now, and hope the economy is somewhat better when election time hits.
Knowing that a bad economy at election time is the #1 reason for losing political seats, Id bet on #1 too. But its hard to argue that doing so is ignoring the will of the voters.
(Btw, its good to hear that the US loss almost nothing in those bailouts, atleast the financial bailouts - almost all of the financial firms have returned their bailout money. The only ones that have continued to cost us big are the GSE's and the union bailouts).
Obama was recently rebuked by Congress for some light hints that suggest the US frowns on Israeli settlement construction, though Obama isn't forbidding the construction. This despite the fact that Americans opposes settlement construction by a margin of 49 to 22% with the remainder undecided.
Fine. But all of this has to be factored into the fact that the Public also has record high support for Israel and record low support for Palestinians.
What I'm doing with the polls I'm looking at is I'm looking at polls that are asking specific questions because those questions precisely align with the implementation of the policies.
So for instance your Wiki link regarding support for the war includes various questions and shows that the responses vary based upon the question. For instance if you ask if people support or oppose an invasion, giving just 2 options, you find support for war, whereas if you offer different options it looks different. My poll is an asking of a question that maps precisely to what the policy was that was implemented. Do you support an invasion without UN authorization? That's what we did and only 33% of Americans agreed. What you need to show is precise polling questions and the precise corresponding legislation.
So for instance you point to job approval. That's vague and doesn't translate precisely to any particular policy, so it's impossible to evaluate if this represents a democratic style response or not. Note also that this poll is a "First 100 Days" poll so things may be different now. The distrust of government is a recent poll, possibly reflecting Obama's recent actions (ignoring his constituents in many ways.)
Back to my claim regarding the precise opinions of Americans and the corresponding policies, I'm showing the American public's precise opinions regarding settlements. You're pointing to vague polls that can't really logically be connected to specific policies, so no conclusions can be drawn. There's no way to know if vague positive feelings towards Israel and against Palestinians means Americans support specific actions either the Palestinians or Israelis engage in. With regards to specific policies our government opposes the will of the American people. That's what matters.
So it's interesting that I think the polls you offered are all accurate. It's not a matter of me selecting polls I like and rejecting others. What I'm doing is simply looking at precise polling questions and the corresponding governmental policies and I'm seeing that they don't match. You want to counter that with vague questions that don't logically translate to knowledge of the American people's real views about specific policies. So your conclusions don't follow.
But its the overall picture politicians care about - which includes the cumulative polling data, not one particular poll.
Obama, for example, cares alot less whether he satisfied his constituents individual demands on specific policies than he does on their overall view of his decisions in that arena.
What do you think a politician would be happier with: A) a situation in which his voting aligns strongly with several individual polled issues but on net has less approval ratings on overall job performance or B) One who misses a particular issue here and there but has better approval ratings on job performance? Of course politicians would care about situation B far more than A.
Trying to think of an analogy here, so let me just throw this one out. Your argument sounds like this to me. You take a poll and ask Americans if they think they should exercise more. 70% say they should. So you pass a law that fines anyone that doesn't exercise 5 days a week.
But that's not what the public said. The public made a general statement. But if you ask them about the specific policy you are implementing and if they think fining people for failing to work out is a good idea they reject it at a rate of 70%. I look at this second question and I say you're not fulfilling the wishes of the people. You say you are and you talk about how what matters is the overall picture. Maybe your overall job approval doesn't look too bad so this proves you are being democratic. There's no logical connection there. We can see that the public precisely opposes the policies you implemented.
But then that politician wouldnt likely get >50% favorable approval on, say, health related domestic issues, now would s/he?
And if the politician does, then is he really being undemocratic?
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