www.cnn.com/…
At first glance, CNN appears to have a bad poll for Democrats: “DACA not worth a shutdown,” it blares. Indeed, in that poll, 56% favor avoiding a shutdown even if it means caving on DACA, and only 34% favor continuing DACA even if it means shutting down.
There is also a bright spot: DACA itself is popular, with 84% saying DACA should continue. That part doesn’t get a headline or a neat little graph. Nor do they even bother to inform us how many people think it should not continue (as opposed to having no opinion or being indifferent).
The CNN article unfortunately slants its presentation of this data. I think these results should be very encouraging for Democrats. Here is why.
What the CNN polling does not ask is this: “Is blocking DACA so important that it is worth shutting down the government?” After all, that is the Republican position.
A shutdown requires the intransigence of both parties. A shutdown is not popular, nor should it be. It is a terrible event. The question presented by this polling data is, who is to be held responsible? Who is put in the worse position politically?
CNN, for reasons only they can explain, asked about only the Democratic policy goal in a way that attached it to the anchor of the shutdown, while not doing the same to the Republican position. This was not fair, but the results are nonetheless illuminating, because we can infer what a parallel question about the Republican position would have been.
Plainly, if 84% are in favor of DACA, then no more than 16% are against it. Thus, the percentage of people who are SO against it that they favor shutting down the government over blocking it has to be less than 16%.
Attaching the shutdown anchor to the Democratic policy position dragged it from 84% all the way down to 34%. Even if you believe that the same anchor would not weigh down the Republican position AT ALL, they would surely score no more than 16% if the tables were reversed and a similarly unfair framing was used against them.
Remember, the 16% includes some unknown percentage of people who don’t care one way or another about DACA; and it includes what has to be a significant percent who don’t like DACA, but aren’t willing to shut down the government to block it. What would be left? Maybe 5%, realistically? Who cares, fuck it, let’s give them the whole 16%.
And that is the apples-to-apples comparison. The democratic position on the shutdown is at least twice as popular. Republicans should be quaking in their boots over this poll, if they know how to properly interpret it, and if the poll itself doesn’t drive the narrative to the extent of becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy.
I am not accusing CNN of being pro-Trump or anti-Democrat. Obviously, they are fierce critics of the president in general, and rightly so. I am accusing them of being lazy and/or innumerate. They need to do better.