ANALYSIS: Why Republicans Tout ‘Right Direction/Wrong Track’ Numbers At Their Peril
Lots of places where Americans angry at the political right
A very old adage says that no one should believe their own public relations.
That should go double right now for anyone connected to the Republican Party.
Yet, once again, those on the right seem perfectly happy to skip merrily past their own political graveyard.
We saw a perfect example of this over the weekend, when Fox News — yes, that Fox News — featured a minor politician, and a losing one at that, to make bold pronouncements about the political temperature of the nation and how that metric somehow portends our great readiness to embrace Florida's Republican governor as our next president of the United States.
Fox featured Tiffany Smiley — a near-amateur, one-time Republican candidate who lost her race last year for US Senate from Washington State by 13 percentage points — on its flagship Sunday morning talk show to trumpet public opinion polling which indicates that many more Americans say the nation is on the wrong track rather than going in the right direction.
Smiley certainly sounded very wise when she declared, “Yeah, look, this is also really, really early. Ron DeSantis has not even announced yet. But what I am excited about is we have an opportunity to have robust debate and discussion about issues that are affecting the American people. That is good for our party.
“The Democrats won’t have that because their far-left extreme policies, they’re already solidified, which is why Joe Biden’s approval is in the 30s. The American people are clear. They know the country is on the wrong track. I have seen that theme played out in the survey I just did of 2,000 registered voters across the country with my new project Rescuing the American Dream.”
Smiley's certainly right when she notes high dissatisfaction in the country. Some 70 percent or more clearly believe that the United States is headed in the wrong direction.
However, it's her eagerness to lay all of that unhappiness at President Biden's feet that's very misplaced.
To be sure, there is a segment of the population displeased with Biden and his policies.
But is it fair to blame the president for all — or even most — of that dissatisfaction?
That, I would argue, is where Smiley's either misguided or just willing to deliberately mislead her audience.
How can I say that?
Just look at the evidence.
If 70 percent or more of the American people were really angry primarily with Biden, Republicans would have seen that “red wave” they expected in the midterm elections last November; not the small trickle that actually happened. If Smiley were right, Speaker Kevin McCarthy would have a commanding majority in the House. And Republican Mitch McConnell would be Senate majority leader.
Neither is the case today.
The truth is that voters actually see how the political right is wielding power, and they don't like that.
Americans, for instance, have been watching how Republicans have been attacking abortion rights over the nearly year it's been since the right-wing supermajority on the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade and upended half a century of guaranteed abortion access.
And most of them don't like what they see. Clear majorities of the American people support abortion rights.
Further, Americans are tired, angry — and, quite frankly, scared — at the seemingly endless stream of deadly mass shootings in America. And they don't think that the Republican solution of offering nothing but “thoughts and prayers” is the answer.
Again, big majorities of Americans — as high as 83 percent — disagree with Republicans who think the Second Amendment is absolute. Voters want to see new regulations like wider background checks, a gun registry and even a new ban on assault-style weapons.
Finally, Republicans — largely at the state level — have been waging a merciless culture war with increasingly punitive laws to strip away rights from transgender and other LGBTQ Americans.
And, once again, Americans don't approve.
Just look at recent polling from Data for Progress.
“This polling finds that voters across all political parties see the Republican attempt to flood state legislatures with anti-LGBTQ+ legislation as political theater,” said Erin Thomas, a pollster at Data for Progress. “It also shows that the ideas espoused by today’s loudest anti-trans advocates — that trans people threaten children and that our identities are a ‘woke’ invention — don’t resonate with the average voter.”
Taken all together, it becomes inescapable that voters are at least unhappy with the direction Republicans want to take the country and not exclusively the direction that President Biden and the Democrats are moving in.
Republicans can keep trying to say otherwise, but they risk increasing political irrelevancy if they actually believe that.
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