Polls: Americans Not Fans Of Trump Shooting 95,000 Dead On 5th Avenue

Even Republicans want 'reopening' to be done cautiously.

For all of Donald Trump's insistence, echoed by his pet cable network, that America needs to hurry out and go risk getting coronavirus so he can get reelected, the latest polls continue to show we'd rather be safe than rush out and be "warriors" for the GDP. And while Republicans are more likely than Democrats or independents to say they want an end to the public health orders aimed at reducing the spread of the virus, there are very few Americans who agree with the armed loons (and their "president") who want everything to reopen immediately.

Those findings are consistent across several recent polls, which can only mean one thing: George Soros must really be paying us all a lot to skew the results that way.

At the Washington Post, Philip Bump has a pretty good overview, noting that the AP-NORC (haha! NORC! ) poll found a decline in support over the last month for continued orders telling people to stay at home, with the biggest slip in support among Republicans. Fewer than half of Rs now support stay at home orders in general.

But just like all those polls showing people have a low opinion of Congress but think their own representatives are doing a pretty good job, things change considerably when folks are asked about health measures in their own areas .

[Most] Americans see the restrictions in their area as being about right for combating the pandemic. In fact, more than three-quarters of Americans think that the restrictions either are appropriate or don't go far enough — and two-thirds of Republicans agree. One-third of Republicans think that existing restrictions go too far, making up the bulk of the fifth of Americans who hold that position.

 Chart by Washington Post 

That's a hell of a thing, isn't it? Republicans really do want America to open up again, as long as it's not their own patch of America. Reopening for thee, but not for me.

The most recent poll by Quinnipiac University had similar findings. Respondents were asked whether the country should "reopen quickly, even if it makes the spread of the coronavirus worse," or "reopen slowly, even if it makes the economy worse." Because most Americans are apparently not sociopaths, the vast majority, 75 percent, said let's go slow even if it hurts the economy. Just 21 percent thought we should emphasize reopening over health.

But when broken down by party, things got ugly on one end of the political spectrum. While half of Republicans still said go slow, a whopping 44 percent said reopen the economy even if the virus spreads. By contrast, 95 percent of Democrats and 74 percent of independents said it would be better to go slowly.

What we need now is for the CDC to offer guidance on how the rest of us can protect ourselves from a frighteningly large percentage of Republicans. Oh, hold on, we have the answer right here, from the last president who actually let the CDC do its damn job .

Vote.

— Barack Obama (@Barack Obama) 1589481896.0 

Finally, let's take a look at this Navigator poll, which found that most Americans reject Donald Trump's attempts to blame Barack Obama's administration for America's failure to prepare for that pandemic, and that the percentage of people who believe Donald Trump is responsible for the increasing death toll from COVID-19 has increased significantly from last month.

The overall percentage of Americans saying Trump is responsible for coronavirus's US death toll has increased 11 points, from 50 percent in April to 61 percent. But look at that last line: While most Republicans still say they don't hold Trump responsible, the percentage of those who do consider him responsible for the high death toll has nearly doubled, from 14 percent in April to 27 percent now. Add in "not that responsible" as opposed to "not at all responsible" and nearly half of Republicans now say he's got at least some culpability. It's possible that could be a one-time anomaly (the poll says it's careful to match its demographic sample to the "national registered voter population"), but that's a number to keep an eye on in coming months.

That's not very good news for Trump if that trend continues, and we'd bet it could reflect other recent polling showing declining approval for Trump's handling of the pandemic among older voters — a Morning Consult poll earlier this month saw his approval rating among voters over 65 drop by 20 points. It must be time to remind them the last president was black.

[ WaPo / AP-NORCO poll / Quinnipiac poll / Navigator poll via Daily Kos ]

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