Only 28% of Republicans trust government (76% trust Trump)

Watching the Ted Cruz clip on Tucker Carlson last night, I thought of the song Roll Over Beethoven.

Cruz had said at a Senate hearing the day before that January 6 was a "violent terrorist attack on the Capitol where we saw the men and women of law enforcement … risk their lives to defend the men and women who serve in this Capitol."

Apparently, a year later, the senator still is unaware of Ashli Babbitt. Or maybe he just does not care.

Certainly he is unaware of how out of touch he is with his party's voters.

Which brings me to Chuck Berry's anthem.

You know my temperature's risin'
And the jukebox's blows a fuse
My heart's beatin' rhythm
And my soul keeps singing the blues
Roll over Beethoven
And tell Tchaikovsky the news

Roll over Ted Cruz and tell Mitch McConnell the news.

They are out of touch with Republican voters who don't see the protesters as the threat to the America. The government is the threat.

Morning Consult reported, "Republicans Are Even Less Confident in U.S. Elections Than They Were Before Jan. 6 Attack. Just 35% of Republicans trust the U.S. electoral system, down 8 points since before the melee at the Capitol."

It gets worse.

The poll found only 28% of Republicans trust the government, down from 48% a year ago.

Trust in Congress is down to 29%. Trust in the media is down to 19%. Trust in Silicon Valley is down to 22%.

Cruz wants to be president? He might not survive his next primary after that statement.

The reason there is so little trust in these institutions is called track record. Congress, the media, and the government are untrustworthy.

In 2000, George Bush won the election by 537 votes. That was his margin of victory in Florida. Overall, he had fewer popular votes than Gore.

Six months after his inauguration, Gallup reported only 73% of Americans thought his presidency was legitimate.

Only 62% think Biden's presidency is legitimate.

Forbes reported, "Polls over the past year have consistently shown that a majority of Americans believe Joe Biden is the legitimate president. In their new poll, 62% said Biden legitimately won the election." 

That referenced a CBS/YouGov poll. An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll found only 65% accepted the results of an election that Biden won by 6 million ballots.

And therein lies the rub. After a century of voter participation hovering around 55% in presidential elections, it shot up to 67% in 2020 thanks to mail-in ballots. The legitimacy of those mail-in ballots deserves review. No one will. Not the courts, not Congress, not the media -- no one.

Even Trump's efforts to overturn the election have largely ignored the ballot harvesting by Democrats.

Trust is something you have to earn every day.

Republicans no longer trust those institutions that Ted Cruz defends.

The NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll found 35% of Americans believe the congressional investigation into January 6 is a witch hunt.

That's despite a yearlong propaganda campaign in which the White House and Congress framed the protest as worse than 9/11. Calling Ashli Babbitt a domestic terrorist is sick. And that is what Ted Cruz did. 

Brendan Cole at Newsweek had an interesting take, "Donald Trump Was the True Winner of Jan. 6."

Remember, on that day he had a peaceful rally of 100,000 (or more) people who wanted the election examined before being finalized. The storming of the Capitol by 500 people eclipsed that march on Washington.

Cole wrote, "Civiqs' daily tracking polls have shown that following the tumultuous 12 months since the riots, Trump's standing among Republicans is largely unchanged.

"Just before the insurrection, 83% of registered Republican voters surveyed said they had a favorable opinion of Trump. That rating stayed above 80% every month until August 2021, and was still as high as 76% by the end of December.

"Pence's favorability rating, which was 78% at the time of the insurrection, slumped immediately to 40% after he certified the election results. By the end of 2021, the rating had declined even further to 28%.

"McConnell's 58% rating declined 10 points when he recognized Biden as the winner on December 15, 2020. It went even lower after he condemned Trump's 'conspiracy theories' before Congress on January 6, 2021. He now has a net favorability rating of minus 32, according to the polling reported by FiveThirtyEight."

Roll over Ted Cruz.

Mike Pence.

Mitch McConnell.

Et cetera.

Trump's still "rockin' in two by two."