Republican Voters Are Pushing Their Party Toward a Shutdown
The GOP electorate tends to prefer confrontation to pragmatism, which does not bode well for budget negotiations this fall.
Hostage to his party?
Photographer: Saul Loeb/AFP
Republicans have been responsible for every extended government shutdown in US history, and they will probably add to their total this fall. The latest New York Times/Siena College poll helps explain why: Republican voters tend to have outlandish or even impossible expectations for their politicians — and pointless confrontation, such as a government shutdown, is a way for elected officials to get around the incompatibility of these preferences.
The basic problem is straightforward: Republican voters dislike pragmatism yet tend not to have a strong attachment to a specific policy agenda. So they’re not interested in cutting deals to achieve incremental progress on any given issue.