When conservatives lost the policy argument over the stimulus, they went back to simply complaining about spending. In an odd example of self-serving bias, their resistance to Obama’s agenda was proof that the GOP was “back” and had found a winning strategy.
Gallup’s surveys of public opinion have shown something else entirely. Obama weathered the stimulus debate without much of a hit precisely because he refused to indulge Congressional Republicans in a contest of invective. Meanwhile, Republicans didn’t fare so well.
At any rate, after passing the stimulus, Congress’ approval rating has jumped, albeit from a very low point to begin with. Don’t be surprised if we then see Republicans arguing that Congress’ approval ratings prove their strategy is working, they’re still stuck in the throes of a phenomenon Shankar Vedantam wrote about last year:
Political scientists Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler provided two groups of volunteers with the Bush administration’s prewar claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. One group was given a refutation — the comprehensive 2004 Duelfer report that concluded that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction before the United States invaded in 2003. Thirty-four percent of conservatives told only about the Bush administration’s claims thought Iraq had hidden or destroyed its weapons before the U.S. invasion, but 64 percent of conservatives who heard both claim and refutation thought that Iraq really did have the weapons. The refutation, in other words, made the misinformation worse.
Nyhan and Reifler are both Democrats. But I haven’t seen anyone refute the results of this study, and everything we’ve seen since the election suggests it’s accurate. At this point, I don’t think it matters what happens, Republicans will continue to reflexively oppose Obama’s agenda and believe that it’s helping them in all circumstances, regardless of whether it does or not.
— A. Serwer
