Tuesday, February 15, 2022

CBS CAN'T PROCESS THE FACT THAT ITS POLL SAYS REPUBLICANS WANT TO PUNISH DISLOYALTY TO TRUMP

Here's the headline of a CBS poll story:
Republicans still back Trump but don't want GOP to punish disloyalty - CBS News poll
Here are the actual numbers:


We're told:
Rather than directly punish Republicans perceived to be disloyal to Trump, Republicans say the party should perhaps take a different approach — like supporting these incumbents' opponents in primaries. And about half would simply accept these other views within the party, rather than punishing them.
Yes, but 52% either want the heretics punished immediately or want them primaried, with the party supporting the challenger. Last time I looked, 52% was a majority, and a party that withheld support from a party member running for reelection was doling out a punishment.

This also reads like denial:
Few Republicans want to see the party take a position of outright support of those who forced their way into the Capitol. A 44% plurality of Republicans say the party shouldn't take a position on these January 6 participants, and a similar number say it should be critical of them.


The key number here is that only 40% of Republicans believe that the party should criticize the insurrectionists. That's a higher number than I would have expected, but if 60% disagree, that doesn't suggest that the GOP is dominated by rational, sober-sided voters who can be trustworthy partners in a democratic system.

Surprisingly, 66% of Republican respondents approve of Mike Pence's actions on January 6 (as the poll question puts it, the fact that he "followed the procedure described in the Constitution for opening and counting the states’ 2020 presidential electoral votes in Congress"). But 49% approve of "Donald Trump pressuring Mike Pence to try to overturn the 2020 election." I would have expected a higher number, but at least 15% of GOP respondents approve of what both of them did, whatever that means.

These Republicans want the January 6 investigation stopped (72% say so), want the January 6 insurrectionists pardoned (61%), and want Trump to run for president again (69%). And they want future Republican leaders to be very, very Trumpy:


I don't know what to make of that vaccine number -- maybe they think Trump doesn't really support vaccination, or maybe they like the fact that he opposes vaccine mandates. In any case, GOP poll respondents want someone who thinks the 2020 election was stolen, and a majority, if a bare one, wants future Republicans to behave like Trump. The ones who don't presumably want someone like Ron DeSantis -- someone who devotes his life to owning the libs just as much as Trump does, but not quite as floridly.

But if this is the GOP's way of saying it's moved on from Trumpism, I'm ... not seeing it.

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