Republicans Don’t Understand Why People Don’t Like Them

There’s a story in the right-wing Washington Examiner saying that Republicans are alarmed that their tax cuts aren’t more popular.

In a fresh NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey conducted jointly by Democratic and Republican pollsters, the law was underwater: 27 percent approved, 36 percent disapproved. Those results track with private data Republicans have monitored, sparking anxiety about their chances of surviving a tough November election with their House majority intact.

“Republicans have a lot of work in front of them to make sure people understand the benefits of the tax bill, and nobody is going to be driving this but them. They need to understand that itâ€™s not just â€” weâ€™ve done this, letâ€™s go on to the next thing,â€ said David Winston, a GOP pollster who advises House and Senate Republicans.

â€œThe signature achievement for Congressional Republicans for this Congress will have been the tax bill â€” no matter what else they do,â€ he added.

They are blaming Trump for being off message.

â€œPeople arenâ€™t talking about it enough, and when people arenâ€™t talking about it enough, thatâ€™s a problem,â€ Ohio Rep. Steve Stivers, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said Tuesday, of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. â€œOur guys need to be talking about the tax bill more; thatâ€™s one of the things that I talked about in conference this morning.â€

However, a poll taken in March found that 52 percent of working adults say they aren’t seeing any increase in their paychecks, which may tell us something about why talking about the tax cuts isn’t going to help. The tax bill doesn’t seem to be winning hearts and minds; a Gallup poll found 39 percent approval for it in February and April. No change.

Last February the Koch Brothers put a bunch of money into television ads aimed at Claire McCaskill for not voting for the tax increase. Here’s one, featuring a nice white family who have a very nice home. I saw a few of them, and then they stopped running. I suspect they weren’t moving the needle.

Last month Eric Levitz wrote that the tax cut bill was more popular in January, right after it passed, and then fell in popularity in February, which was when people were supposed to start seeing more money in their paychecks.

Republicans could blame the public for its ignorance on this front. Or, they could also blame themselves for giving massive tax breaks to the wealthy, and â€œso small they could be erased by your rising health-insurance premiumsâ€ tax breaks to working people.

The New York Times, also last month:

At Slyderâ€™s Tavern, Matt Kazee, a machinist, drank a couple of beers as he waited for burgers to take home for dinner. His tab was about equal to the increase in his take-home pay after President Trumpâ€™s tax cut found its way into the nationâ€™s paychecks.

â€œI have seen a little uptick in my paycheck, about what I expected, about 30 bucks,â€ said Mr. Kazee, who voted for President Barack Obama in 2008 before backing Mr. Trump in the 2016 election. â€œIt felt to me about like where things were 15 years ago.â€

His underwhelmed reaction was not what Republicans had in mind. The white working-class voters in the industrial Midwest who helped put Mr. Trump in the White House are now seeing the extra cash from the tax cut, the presidentâ€™s signature domestic policy achievement and the foundation for Republican election hopes in November.

But the result has hardly been a windfall, economically or politically. Other workers described their increase as enough for a weekâ€™s worth of gas or a couple of gallons of milk, with an additional $40 in a paycheck every two weeks on the high side to $2 a week on the low. Few are complaining, but the working class here is not feeling flush with newfound wealth.

Republicans really thought that throwing a few bucks at the little people would hand them the midterms on a plate. Remember Paul Ryan’s tweet about the secretary who got a whole additional $1.50 a week? It’s kind of hard to fake being a populist when you are clueless about the people.

9 thoughts on “Republicans Don’t Understand Why People Don’t Like Them

  1. Gee, a tax cut that is actually a tax increase for most people isn’t popular? Maybe waitresses and steel workers are better at math than Senators.

  2. No uptick at all.

    From day one I called  it the pizza cut. You're lucky to get enough to buy a pizza.

     and 1.5 trillion debt saddled onto the grand children. Worth it?

  3. I don't like the Repugs because they put party over country. I'm not a big fan of lockstep mentality and blind obedience. They remind me of brownshirts smashing windows and terrorizing the most vulnerable people in society. That's my major beef with the GOP. As far as the tax scam goes..I'm too close to finish line to get the full effect of the damage it's going to do. But the one thing that really bothers me is the idea that not one of the Repugs even read the tax scam bill before they voted to accept it. That's a scary thought..Who's watching the store?

  4. THE tax cut was and IS the largest transfer of the US wealth to the already wealthy and the corporations they own!

    The SECOND this century under GOP/Republican governance!

    Next up … privatise the VA and/or Social Security!

    Welcome to the American oligarchy!


  5. It can be a curse in disguise when theory becomes practice.  They've sold the same nostrums for so long that they've become an article of faith.   Once in a while reality intrudes and things don't work quite the way the theory predicted.   Sadly, when the tax cuts don't increase revenue or create jobs, the filthy rich will be even filthier and the hammer will fall on the poor saps who wanted so desperately to believe in what they were being sold.

    Of course, it will be far too late to do anything about it.

  6. Read the conservative comment threads, on almost any topic, and you'll find much not to like about them.  A lot of their supporters are really nasty pieces of work. As for the tax cuts, Ryan crowing about a $1.50 pay increase as a result of their tax cuts tells you all you need to know about the GOP and what they care about.


  7. @Swami,


    > I don't like the Repugs because they put party over country.


    That's not fair. They put country before people…as long as that country is Russia.

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