REPUBLICAN CONTROL OF CONGRESS

Political poll results make my head spin. A recent poll indicated people Republicans lead in public opinion 46% over 43% Democrats when asked which party is best to control congress. I can easily explain why polls of these same people indicate the public wants certain things yet congress voted against those things; big money has created this obvious disconnect by buying and paying politicians to vote in the interest of a 1% minority; they have done this in multiple and devious ways. Recently, the list of issues that fall into that morass, defined as what people want and what the economic elite don’t want, hence will never happen: minimum wage, immigration reform, tax the wealthy, climate control . . . apple pie, baseball and motherhood.

Opposing arguments are weak or not made at all. In other words, no one even tries to defend what corporations have already accomplished either economically or political parties have accomplished: for example, in states where Democrats or Republican have complete control  over the governor’s office, legislative assemblies and more significantly and recently, and sadly,  the courts, we clearly see the results; therefore, can evaluate the results. I am talking about such thing as subsidies to oil, gas or coal companies, environmental protection, offshore drilling, oil pipelines, voter suppression, educational standards called common core, gerrymandering of legislative districts, shifts of tax burdens, health care, gun control, etc. There is a stark difference between states.

Although it is difficult to judge, generally speaking, about 33% of the population seems to be solidly conservative and 33% is liberal and 34% “swingers”. Of course, we are obliged to divide the population is various way, which shifts some people from one group to another, especially the middle of roaders, which means we cannot individualize such labels. By that, I mean people who have social conservative beliefs are not the same ones that have economic conservative beliefs so it is not correct to label them either Republican or Democrats on that basis.

The natures of our political party beliefs shift, or evolve, with time; thus, people who are Republicans for one election are democrats for the next. We saw a massive shift in 1964 with civil rights legislation; massive numbers of people left the Democratic party and move to the Republican party in some case becoming the most vociferous members. We see a massive shift in time of war. It is so important for pollsters to dig into the reasons people respond to their questions the way the do but pollsters usually don’t do that. People are too lazy to analyze poll results; therefore, they are inclined to believe that “bumper-sticker” message as true, which is why it is so necessary to know the political persuasion of the pollster; it can change poll results from information to propaganda.

As a resident of North Carolina, and with strong liberal leanings, when I try to analyze the results of the recent poll, I am confused. How can it be accurate? What are these 46% thinking? Why isn’t the result 33% favoring of Republicans and 67% favoring Democrats. In my mind, when we partition the numbers, it should be 1% is economic conservatives and 32% social conservatives mainly because religion is a powerful force; separation of church and constitution “be damned”. Economically, the economic conservative has a double standard; they want low taxes and many, many government services; corporate welfare, social security, health care, some welfare giving but do not want to pay for it.

Thus, if I subtract 33% from 46% poll result that favor Republican control, I have trouble explaining the mindset of the remaining 13 % who favor Republican control. Why do I have this problem? Simple; Republicans are in now control of the federal House of Representatives and because of the filibuster rule, they control legislation in the Senate, and it has been a complete disaster. They have passed no legislation to deal with what they complain about and the few laws Republicans have passed are not palatable to a majority of American people—50 repeals of Obamacare is as ridiculous as it sounds. There is a massive shift in income disparity.

Additional negative evidence comes from the fact that  they have control of the governorship, and both legislative assemblies in North Carolina and Republican control is even a worse disaster for the working people of the state then it is for the people of the nation. A few rich Republican’s and our Governor, who works for Duke Energy, have already corrupted all of our election laws, have corrupted many of our state agencies that are suppose to protect the working class, massively defunded public education, and have completely corrupted environmental control and our tax system. They are in the process of forming a “private corporation” to substitute for the State Department of Commerce. They try to hide Republican malfeasance in office, for example, by saying they are fighting to increase the miserably low teachers’ salaries they caused.

In conclusion, the poll is probably right but the question remains; why do 46% of people want Republicans to control government. It makes no sense to me. To paraphrase my daughter, I would understand the pro-Republican’s arguments once Democrats started using guns for abortion. 

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