Poll:
Americans’ Massive Disapproval of Both Parties
By Eric
Zuesse
The “Monthly
Harvard-Harris Poll: June 2017” is
the latest poll in that series, and it
scientifically sampled 2,258 U.S. registered
voters, of whom (as shown on page 30) 35% were
“Democrat,” 29% were “Republican,” and 30% were
“independent”). It indicates (page 24) that 37%
“approve” and 63% “disapprove” of “the way the
Republican Party is handling its job.” It also
indicates (page 25) that 38% “approve,” and 62%
“disapprove,” of “the way the Democratic Party
is handling its job.” So: despite there being 6%
more self-described “Democrat”s than
“Republican”s, there was only 1% more
disapproval of the Republican Party than of the
Democratic Party; and, this indicates that there
was a substantial disapproval of “the Democratic
Party” by Democratic voters (more disaffection
by them for ‘their’ Party, than by Republicans
for theirs).
The answers to
other questions in the poll also help to answer
why this is so, and why the voting public don’t
hold either Party in high regard — why
America’s supposedly
‘democratic’ (small-“D”) politics is
currently a contest between uglies, with neither
Party offering anything like what the U.S.
voting public want their government to do (i.e.,
it fits what this
scientific study —
linked there — found actually to control U.S.
politics):
(Page 27)
41% think “President
Trump should be impeached and removed
from office,” and 45% think “no action should be
taken” against him.
(Page 28)
36% think “the investigations into Russia and
President Trump” are “helping the country,” but
64% think the opposite: that these
investigations are “hurting the country.”
(Page 39)
Of listed U.S. government officials, the highest
percentage-favorable ratings were:
Bernie Sanders
(52%), Mike
Pence (47%),
Donald Trump
(45%), Hillary
Clinton (39%),
Paul Ryan
(38%),
Elizabeth Warren (37%),
Jim Comey
(36%), Robert
Mueller (34%),
Nancy Pelosi
(31%), Jeff
Sessions (28%), and
Rex Tillerson
(28%).
(Page 40)
The highest percentage-unfavorable ratings were:
Hillary Clinton (56%), Nancy Pelosi (51%),
Donald Trump (50%), Paul Ryan (45%), Mitch
McConnell (42%), Jeff Sessions (41%), Mike Pence
(40%), Jared Kushner (39%), Bernie Sanders
(38%), Jim Comey (36%), and Elizabeth Warren
(36%).
(Page 72)
48% think “President Trump colluded with the
Russians during the election over the hacking of
the Democratic National Committee and John
Podesta’s emails.” 52% say “No” — Trump did not
do that.
(Page 73)
54% say “associates of President Trump” did it;
46% say “No” to that.
(Page 74)
38% say “There is evidence” of such “collusion”
by Trump; 62% say “No.”
(Page 75)
54% say this is a “legitimate investigation”;
46% say it’s “fueled to create a cloud over the
Trump administration.”
(Page 79)
44% say “Keep the focus on the Russia
investigation”; 56% say “Move on to other
issues.”
(Page 83)
73% say they are “concerned” that there has been
“lost focus and energy by the administration and
Congress because of the Russia investigation.”
67% say they’re “concerned” about “future
interference by Russia in U.S. elections.”
(Page 95)
54% say “Yes” and 46% say “No” to “Do you think
the so called ‘Deep State’ — the collection of
intelligence agencies and holdover government
workers from the Obama administration — is
trying to unseat President Trump?”
(Page 96)
When asked “Who do you think is more to blame
for Hillary Clinton’s loss of the election?” 67%
choose “Hillary Clinton and her campaign team
for running a weak campaign” and 33% choose
“Forces like the Russians, former FBI director
Comey, and the Democratic National Committee not
having reliable voter data.”
(Page 124)
74% “Favor” “Offering incentives for electric
cars and renewable energy such as wind and
solar.” 62% “Favor” Setting much tougher
emission standards for cars and other vehicles.”
34% “Favor” “Putting coal, and all coal and
clean coal plants, out of business.” Today’s
American public take global warming seriously —
or at least more seriously than Republican
public officials do..
(Page 133)
47% think it was “Right” and 53% think it was
“Wrong” for Trump “to pull the United States out
of the current version of the Paris Climate
Agreement.”
(Page 151)
49% think “the media is being fair” to President
Trump; 51% say “Unfair.”
(Page 154)
21% “Favor “raising the U.S. government’s debt
ceiling.” 69% “Oppose.”
(Page 155)
36% “Favor” “a government shut down” over the
issue; 64% “Oppose.”
What this poll
found is basically
the same thing that has been shown in many
different polls.
So: former U.S.
President Jimmy Carter, who was the
last person who was able to win the White House
without needing to rely upon billionaries in
order to do it,
was correct when he
said that,
“Now
it’s just an oligarchy with unlimited
political bribery being the essence of
getting the nominations for president or
being elected president. And the same thing
applies to governors, and U.S. Senators and
congress members.”
Anybody who refers to this government as being a
‘democracy’ is way behind the times, because it
has been, ever since 1980, controlled by its
aristocracy; it is an “oligarchy” instead of a
democracy; it is a “regime” instead of a
government that represents its public. This
regime represents its aristocrats. And that is
why the public’s disapproval of this country’s
leaders is so high. That happens in a regime, not in
a democracy. Both of America’s Parties represent
this country’s aristocracy, not America’s
public. The latest Harvard-Harris poll simply
adds to the already-overwhelming evidence of
this. But the basic evidence on the matter was the
Gilens-Page study.
In their section “American Democracy?” they
said:
What
do our findings say about democracy in
America? They certainly constitute troubling
news for advocates of “populistic”
democracy, who want governments to respond
primarily or exclusively to the policy
preferences of their citizens. In the United
States, our findings indicate, the majority
does not rule — at least not in the causal
sense of actually determining policy
outcomes. When a majority of citizens
disagrees with economic elites or with
organized interests, they generally lose.
Moreover, because of the strong status quo
bias built into the U.S. political system,
even when fairly large majorities of
Americans favor policy change, they
generally do not get it.
One
of the aristocracy’s many magazines, The
Atlantic, headlined on June 21st, “Is
American Democracy Really Under Threat?” and
tried to fool their readers to think the answer
is no; but, of course, they were pointing, as
‘evidence’, merely to nominal adherence to
‘democratic’ forms, and ignored the actual
evidence on the matter, such as Gilens and Page
examined in depth, and such as the many polls
that have also been referred to in the links
here have additionally reinforced. None of this
actual evidence was even so much as mentioned.
The honest answer to the article’s
title-question is not just “Yes” but more than
that: their question itself is more like their
having asked “Is there a danger of the horse
being stolen?” after the horse was already
stolen, and has for decades (since at least
1980) already been absent from the barn; so,
that article’s very title is a deception, even
without its text (which is written for outright
fools who can’t recognize what constitutes
“evidence” that is suitable for a given
allegation). A better question would therefore
be: Why do people still subscribe to vapid
propaganda-magazines like that? All propaganda
should be free of charge. But, of course, in a
dictatorship like this, people pay even for the
right to be deceived. It’s no longer
free-of-charge. That’s just the way things are
— really are. It’s
shown in the data — not in anybody’s mere
platitudes about the matter. People pay to
embellish the lies that they already believe.
Most people want that, more than they want to
come to know the truth. The worse the truth is,
the more that people crave the myth which
contradicts it — they’ll pay good money to
mainline that into themselves: evidenceless
reassurances, such as that article. But anyone
who takes that type of pap seriously, won’t be
able sensibly to understand such findings as
were reported in the latest Harvard-Harris poll.
Investigative historian
Eric Zuesse is the author, most
recently, of They’re
Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican
Economic Records, 1910-2010, and
of CHRIST’S
VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created
Christianity.
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views expressed in this article are solely those
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opinions of Information Clearing House.
