Those Unrepresentative Guys With Guns

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When a passel of far-right nutjobs stomps through the halls of state capitols brandishing loaded assault weapons, well, yes—it’s news, it merits a lot of coverage.

At the same time, that coverage shouldn’t leave viewers or readers with the impression that this tribe of Trumpistas, anti-vaxxers, and flat-earthers are giving voice to a silent majority that’s had it with sheltering in place and social distancing and wants nothing so much as to open everything up.

In fact, every survey has shown that an overwhelming majority of the citizenry wants to keep things closed down until the pandemic has passed, and the same overwhelming majority is convinced that that’s still a long ways away. A new Washington Post-University of Maryland poll asked when people thought it would be safe to gather in groups of ten or more. Just 9 percent said it was safe now, another 10 percent said by the month’s end, and a further 14 percent by the end of June. But 16 percent didn’t expect that to happen until the end of July; 26 percent said sometime further into 2020, and 24 percent said it would be later than next New Year’s.

And how about all that rage at governors who’ve kept their constituents sheltering in place and nonessential businesses closed down? Are they widely reviled, as the demonstrators suggest?

Far from it. Another new Post poll, this one conducted with Ipsos, surveyed Americans in the dozen largest states on whether they approve or disapprove of the way their governors are handling the crisis. Every governor who’s ordered a shutdown and stuck with it has an approval rating over 70 percent, starting with Ohio’s Republican Mike DeWine (86 percent), New York’s Andrew Cuomo (81 percent), and California’s Gavin Newsom (79 percent). Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer, vilified by her state’s doughty (or is it doughy?) militiamen, has an approval rating of 72 percent, while just 25 percent of Michiganders disapprove of her adherence to safety standards.

The three governors with ratings below 70 percent, by contrast, have been rushing to open up businesses and public gatherings. The approval-disapproval percentile breakdowns for these three Republicans, all in non-blue states, are 60 to 38 for Florida’s Ron DeSantis, 57 to 41 for Texas’s Greg Abbott, and, bringing up the rear, 39 to 61 for Georgia’s Brian Kemp, who’s been the governor most insistent on opening up his state right now, as if the pandemic had passed.

So it’s fine to report on the displays of armed petulance by right-wingers whose petulance precedes the pandemic—so long as those reports make clear that theirs is overwhelmingly a minority view.

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