A YouGov survey commissioned by HuffPost finds that only 13 percent of registered voters believe that Democrats and Republicans will work together in Congress "on important issues facing the country." Sixty-eight percent say that's unrealistic, and 19 percent haven't a clue.
Along partisan lines, 43 percent of Democrats say President Biden should compromise with Republicans; 33 percent say he should stick to his guns.
Predictably, those sentiments shift when it comes to Republicans. Only 25 percent prefer compromise, while a majority — 54 percent — are all for obstruction; that is, adhering to GOP "positions," as though, aside from always vampish tax cuts, it possesses unswerving, principled ones.
What matters to most Republican lawmakers, of course, is not what's in the nation's best interests, but what the hardest, most fanatical core of their base believes, since they are the ones who dictate, come primary season, whether those lawmakers will keep their jobs.
The process of establishing Republican "principles" to be followed is a kind of waltzing duet: GOP pols fill their voters with all manner of crazy, and in turn the base bubbles up — at the urging of Fox News, Newsmax, Breitbart and talk radio — with additional crazy, which they then urge on the pols. And so positions are set, until the crazy shape-shifts, and the dance proceeds.
Hence the professional wackos and their 54 percent — or whatever the precise number — could very well maroon most of the hopes among most of us voters. (See my own counter-view, above.)