Last updated on January 15th, 2019 at 03:27 am
For most political debates in the modern era, the country tends to be split roughly down the middle. But when it comes to this Donald Trump-created government shutdown, we are seeing something quite different.
According to recent polling, voters blame the president and Republicans for the government shutdown by a stunning double-digit margin – 52 percent to 33 percent.
In other words, the American people are firmly with the Democrats. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi doesn’t need to cave to the president’s childish stunt of closing the government until he gets his fantasy wall on the southern border, no matter how many tantrums he throws in the Situation Room.
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CNN‘s Harry Enten underscored this point on Wednesday:
Trump’s approval rating is in the low 40s, by a 20 pt margin Americans say the GOP is more to blame than the Dems for the shutdown, & the GOP just lost a campaign in which Trump made immigration a key issue… Why would Pelosi budge on the wall?
— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) January 9, 2019
Nancy Pelosi is not going to cave to Trump’s tantrums
There are three key reasons why Democrats aren’t about to cave in, regardless of how many times this petulant president lashes out.
The first is that immigration was a key issue during the campaign; Trump made sure of it. In the final days, he shifted the entire focus to the so-called caravan of people marching toward the border. It didn’t work.
Second, the American people do not support the construction of a vanity wall on the southern border. Not only don’t they support the wall, but even more Americans don’t believe the government should be shut down over it.
Third, Trump is still a deeply unpopular president. As Harry Enten pointed out, his approval rating is mired in the low 40s and it looks to be in decline, according to the RealClearPolitics average of all current polling.
Ultimately, this is a lose-lose for the White House and Republicans. Trump, an unpopular president, is shutting down the government over an unpopular policy that a majority of the American people voted against in the most recent national election.
Democrats are right not to back down, because the American people are on their side.
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Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
