All this week, the comic strip Non Sequitur has been poking fun at Congress using the worst superhero ever. The first strip is here and you can follow the sequence.
My favorite is this one.
Mano Singham
Just another Freethought Blogs site
All this week, the comic strip Non Sequitur has been poking fun at Congress using the worst superhero ever. The first strip is here and you can follow the sequence.
My favorite is this one.
Public opinions about Congresspeople (Pew poll) has gone from 37% negative to 69% negative since 1995. And yet, they pretend to be puzzled why.
They all keep getting reelected, so what are they doing wrong? */snark*
@machintelligenc No. 2
Not so much snark. You’re absolutely right.
People are upset with Congress, not their individual congressional representatives.
If people were actually upset we’d have a whole new House of Representatives next year and a new Senate by 2021.
Jeff Hess
Have Coffee Will Write
@3 hyphenman
This used to be true but this is no longer true. Now most people disapprove of their own representatives as well.
@Doublereed No. 4
I should think the undeniable reality that people did not vote their congressional representatives out of office in November 2014, three months after the Washington Post-ABC poll, suggest otherwise.
Our of 468 seats in play— 435 in the House and 33 (or 34, I’m not sure) in the Senate—only 19 changed hands. Republicans won 16 open or Democratic seats and Democrats won only 3 open or Republican seats — only 4 percent of the seats changed hands. (I did not check for members voted out and replaced with a member from the same party, but I doubt this makes much, if any, statistical difference.)
That tells me that the poll was flawed or that a lot happened in the three months between August and November.
I don’t expect much different results this November, but after two years of President Trump I do expect Congress will shift significantly, perhaps long enough to stave off an uber right Supreme Court.
Hyphenman,
You should keep gerrymandering in mind. Congressional districts have been shaped in such a way that Democratic candidates can amass a million more votes than Republican candidates in the aggregate, and yet Republicans can win a plurality (or even a majority) of seats in contention.
@Seth No. 6…
That’s true, you’re absolutely correct, Gerrymandering is critical.
Gerrymandering only works, however, when the number of people in the district who don’t like their representative, regardless of party affiliation, is less than 50 percent. Doublereed, in referring to the Washington Post-ABC poll, was suggesting that, at least in August of 2014, 51 percent of people did not approve of their representative which, if carried through to the actual election, would result in a defeat for the incumbent.
Extremely low voter turn out in 2014 played a major role in keeping incumbents in office, of course and a lot can change in three months. Those who did go to the polls, the only people who matter, soundly told congress that they approved of what their representatives were doing.
Jeff Hess
Have Coffee Will Write
You are forgetting also that not everyone votes and that people would still vote for the lesser of two evils.
I don’t approve of Clinton but I’m still voting for her in November.