In many ways, it's not exactly a shock that House Republicans' epic show of incompetence over five days and 15 rounds of speaker votes played well in upside-down MAGA world. But that's exactly what happened according to a CBS News/YouGov poll taken Wednesday-Friday last week.
Indeed, incompetence is a virtue in MAGA land. Fully 64% of Republican voters in the survey said they approved of "the way the Republicans in the House have handled the selection process for Speaker of the House."
In any reasonable party, roughly two-thirds or more of base voters would be embarrassed at the historic blunder. But as Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, “Are we going to have this kind of conflict going forward? I hope so.” Yee-haw!
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The glass half-full view, however, is that at least 36% of GOP voters were ashamed enough to say they disapproved of House Republicans' meltdown. These are the type of conservative voters who may have, for instance, voted to reelect Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp but declined to support GOP Senate nominee Herschel Walker. They are also the type of conservatives who chose to reject deluded GOP election deniers in statewide races across the country.
Indeed, among survey respondents who identified as “conservative,” only 54% approved of the speaker battle while 46% disapproved.
So House Republicans are doing important work when they remind roughly a third of their base and nearly half of self-identified conservatives exactly why putting Republicans in charge is a horrific idea.
More good news for Democrats: 63% of independents also disapproved of the GOP speaker spectacle.
Overall, 54% of respondents reported paying either "a lot" or "some" attention to the GOP speaker brawl. It's encouraging to think that a majority of the country got an illustrative preview of governance under Republican rule.
The poll contained some other tidbits but one really jumped off the page: 71% of respondents said protecting Social Security and Medicare should be a “high priority” for Congress. The only priority that ranked higher was lowering inflation at 76%.
A lot of people who perhaps weren’t paying particularly close attention to GOP statements and policy papers during the campaign are going to be very surprised.
Happy New Year! Daily Kos’ Joan McCarter is on the show today to talk about the wild garbage fire that was the Republican speaker of the House vote. Kerry and Markos also break down what this onionskin-thin conservative majority can and cannot do in the coming year, as well as what the Democratic representatives can do to make Kevin McCarthy’s life just that much tougher.
