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96 Percent Of Americans Are Wrong About Congress

Despite the widespread belief that gridlock is the primary driver of its unpopularity, we all have our own reasons for disliking Congress.

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For over 20 years, a NBC/WSJ poll has been measuring how voters feel about Congress. And “unsurprisingly,” writes Ezra Klein, “a majority of Americans — a new record — thinks the current Congress is one of the worst ever.” Klein, like many other liberal pundits, has written numerous pieces about how Congress is the worst/laziest/rottenest ever, so this works out well  for them. Not getting your way all the time can be frustrating.

And it is unsurprising. For all the wrong reasons.

What’s wrong ? Absolutely nothing, that’s what.  Though I can’t speak for all Four Percenters, as someone who believes this Congress has been one of the most (inadvertently) effective and underrated in American history, I can offer a number of my own reasons.

Voters tend to believe a lot of myths about how American government works: things like the majority should always have its way, that popular ideas automatically deserve “up or down” votes and that Congress is more “productive” when it passes lots of laws. Klein once argued that the #1 reason a GOP Congress was “the worst ever” was that it was “not passing laws” which is the “simplest measure of congressional productivity.” The simplest, and also the most misleading. We might measure productivity by goals scored, but we could just as easily measure it by goals against average. And Boehner’s Congress, often pressured by a minority within the minority, has made saves on all kinds of terrible bills.

Americans reflexively dislike gridlock. I get that. In the real world, we like to get stuff done. So do politicians. This iteration of the Democratic Party has passed more significant legislation than any other in memory – including, a complete overhaul of health-care and fiscal policy. It was this Democratic Party that championed legislation mandating the participation of every citizen without attaining even the most minimum standard of consensus or input from the minority party.

So today’s intractable GOP Congress — despite its often hapless tactics, overreaches and missteps — is an organic safeguard against that kind of irresponsible centralized democracy. On that merit alone, it should be a lot more popular. And if the ideological gap continues to expand and Washington’s big notions keep intruding on the ability of states and individuals to live by their own ideas and ideals, gridlock will continue be the only remedy. As ineffective as the GOP has often been, this is how the Founders probably wanted it.

That is, of course, if you believe these ham-fisted congressional approval polls tell us as much about our views of Congress as pundits think they do.

Despite the widespread belief that gridlock is the primary driver of Congress’ unpopularity, we all have our own bone to pick with politicians. Trust me, not many conservatives walk around lamenting the fact that Congress doesn’t pass more laws.  More than likely, many respondents are frustrated by the perception/reality that the House GOP isn’t politically effective; that it’s too weak and too accommodating. Check out the anger provoked by the recent budget deal (which is indeed, awful). If these polls deciphered why respondents are unhappy with Congress, we’d probably end up with something resembling the partisan splits we see in most other polls.

Moreover, disliking Congress is akin to disliking lawyers or journalists. Sure, they deserve it, but it’s still often perfunctory. If we truly loathed Congress as much as we maintain we wouldn’t reliably vote for incumbents. We love our congressman. Incumbents, in fact, are safer today than they have been in many decades. I’m going to guess there’s a 96-percent chance that your representative has better approval rating in his or her district than President Barack Obama does nationally.

So there are probably numerous factors driving Congress’ unpopularity. Doubtlessly, some of those factors conflict with each other. So hate them if you must. But if, as some liberal pundits argue, an overwhelming majority of Americans are dissatisfied with the House because its not passing enough laws to reach some arbitrary quota, then the large majority of Americans have absolutely no clue what healthy republican government is supposed to  look like.

Follow David Harsanyi on Twitter.