If you ask Democrats the Republicans controlling the House are the problem. If you ask Republicans the problem lies in Senate and and the White House. None of that should really matter though. The problem is that our government is broken and Americans are fed up with it according to a new Gallup poll that shows a record 82%. 

This poll could also show that the Republican plan is working. 69% now say they have little or no confidence in the legislative branch. while 57% say they have little or no faith in the government to solve domestic problems. Those statistics fit right into the “small/no government” beliefs of the GOP, but it get’s even worse with 49% now believing that the government poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of citizens. Now while I said this was the affect of the GOP plan, I don’t mean it’s good news for the GOP.

If you think back over the past 2 1/2 years, the cause of a broken legislative branch has been the GOP. Starting January 21, 2010, the GOP embarked on a streak of record break filibusters in the Senate. They started in 2009 with saying their goal was to see President Obama fail and the best way was to shut him down through the legislative branch. They succeeded. Instead of a health care program that people would really love, they had to push a piece meal program that looks more like a give-a-way to the health insurance industry. Instead of a meaningful stimulus, a much smaller one was passed that didn’t give make the impact we needed. The goal of pushing President Obama to fail was in a large part won.  Then there is the issue of our freedoms being under attack by the government.

Let’s think about that for a moment. One of the biggest complaints of the right has been the TSA body scanners. They try to blame this all on Obama, while ignoring the fact the plan was put in place and started under President Bush. It was also under Bush we saw Americans being held in prison without charge for extended periods of time and warrantless wire-tapping of phones. These are the bare basics of our freedoms and they were attacked under the previous President and these attacks constantly defended by the right. But there is one right that has been attacked viciously in the past year. That is the right to vote. Across this country the right has been changing voting laws on the state level at a record rate. They are making it harder for citizens to vote by putting much more stringent requirements on citizens before punching the ballot. Voting is the absolutely most fundamental right of any democracy and it has been a target of the right for years now. So this poll might look good if you view it from Republican beliefs, but the fact is that it could be really good for Democrats if they can get organized and remind Americans that it was the right that has caused these problems. It’s the right who has broken our government and eroded our freedoms. Reminded people of this little bit of history and out noise the right and next year could be much better than expected.