The NPR Politics Podcast - Massively Popular Ideas Can't Pass Congress. Is It Time To Reform The System?

Episode Date: July 11, 2022

The overwhelming majority of gun owners are in favor of universal background checks, of raising the minimum age to buy guns to 21 and so-called "red flag" laws to remove guns from potentially dangerous people, a new NPR/Ipsos survey finds. That mirrors the support among the rest of the public.So why is it that ideas with broad-based support have such trouble becoming federal law?This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro, and national political correspondent Mara Liasson.Support the show and unlock sponsor-free listening with a subscription to The NPR Politics Podcast Plus. Learn more at plus.npr.org/politics Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is Michelle in Copenhagen, Denmark, where, even though it's after 10, there's still enough light to finish filling out my primary ballot so it will get back to Maryland in time to be counted. This podcast was recorded at 2.25 p.m. on Monday, July 11th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but American citizens will still be able to vote from abroad. Now, here's the show. Very cool. At first, I was thinking they have primaries in Copenhagen. And I was like, wait, the same way? No, she's from Maryland.

I can't wait for those ads to stop. Local TV ads are making me crazy. Hey, there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. Will we match thoughts and prayers with action? I say yes. And that's what we're doing here today. That is, of course, President Biden at a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House to celebrate, as they described it, the first substantial federal gun legislation in a generation. Yes, there's a right to bear arms.

But we also have a right to live freely, without fear for our lives, in a grocery store, in a classroom, in a playground, at a house of worship, in a store, at a workplace, a nightclub, a festival, in our neighborhoods, in our streets. The right to bear arms is not an absolute right that dominates all others. The parental price for living in a community with others is being neighbors, of being fellow citizens. So let's talk about this event today. It was billed as a celebration, but celebrating what could be argued as a relatively incremental step. Calling it a celebration struck a lot of people, especially gun safety activists, as tone deaf. And before Biden could get to the part of his speech where he called for more,

Joaquin Oliver's father, Joaquin was killed in 2018 in the Parkland massacre. His father stood up at the event and said, we must do more. Joaquin Oliver's father, Joaquin, was killed in 2018 in the Parkland massacre. His father stood up at the event and said, we must do more. Today's many things is proof that despite the naysayers, we can make meaningful progress on dealing with gun violence. Because make no mistake, sit down, you'll hear what I have to say. And he heckled the president and he eventually was taken out of the event. The inability for the White House to really capture the correct tone on these things is really indicative of a lot of things that we're seeing right now with Biden losing a lot of this intensity of support with the Democratic base that he really needs if he wants to win reelection. And if Democrats want to have any hope

of stemming a Republican tide this fall, they need to get out to the polls. But right now, you're seeing them, including in a New York Times-Siena poll over the weekend, two-thirds saying they'd rather have somebody else run for president. The top concern that they cite is Biden's age. And, you know, touting this, like Mara said, as a celebration, having Kamala Harris, the vice president, say that this wouldn't have gotten done without Biden. Just the boastful tone really, really seemed off for a lot of people. Yeah, I mean, I think it's really challenging for any White House, but especially this White House, to get the tone right on these things. There's a division among gun safety advocates, some saying, wow, this is amazing. We got something, anything for the first time in 30 years. Let's celebrate it. And others saying this just isn't enough. I mean, they all say this just isn't enough. But some say it's not even worth celebrating the little victories because it might give cover to Republicans to never do anything, support anything again in a bipartisan way. Well, I just don't understand why it's like all or nothing. You know, like Biden himself has said that he doesn't think that this is enough. But you've got to find the right

way to be able to talk about this without it being like, as if you're the conquering hero. The other thing that this event illustrates is the difference between Democrats and Republicans. Republicans, even though they couldn't stand Donald Trump, were silent about their criticisms. They held their nose. They voted for him. Democrats, as Will Rogers famously said, I'm not a member of an organized party. I'm a Democrat. Democrats are a very sprawling, heterogeneous coalition, and they regularly criticize their leaders, and they have a hard time falling in line, even when they say the stakes for losing are absolutely existential. Let us step back and talk about this other poll, Domenico, that NPR did with the firm Ipsos,

talking to American gun owners. And the top line is that they actually do support at least some restrictions. Is that right? Yeah, we're talking about gun owners here who support, you know, pretty modest gun restrictions, but, you know, overwhelming numbers saying that they're in favor of background checks, 80 plus percent, those red flag laws you talked about, and raising the age that anyone should buy a gun from 18 to 21. I think this was pretty well summed up by Christopher Montez of Connecticut, who was one of the people that we polled. Background checks, red flag laws, and raising the age should be something that we as a country should be doing. That's an incredible thing. I mean, the country is a lot less polarized than its representatives in Congress. I mean, you saw the same thing with abortion. You know, 66% say Roe should be in place, and that 66% includes a lot of people who are personally pro-life. And here you have gun owners agreeing that, you know, you should be 21 to buy an assault weapon, and there should be universal background checks. I mean, that says a lot about the disconnect between voters and leaders. And that's why I think that this gave

Republicans like John Cornyn of Texas a lot of cover because he understands his political base. You know, even Republican gun owners were in favor of a lot of these measures. So what they did with gun legislation, you know, wasn't necessarily that politically risky because that legislation didn't even go as far as gun owners say that they would be of the things that gun owners say that they would be in favor of. How are gun owners different than non-gun owners? Okay, so we mentioned that, you know, gun owners are in favor of some of these more modest regulations. But let's look at the thing that a lot of people have had on their minds, which is banning those assault-style AR-15 semi-automatic weapons in this country. A majority of people

who have been polled, you know, 56 to 61 percent or so, depending on which poll you look at, are in favor of banning those weapons, of returning to that, which we had in the 1990s until the early 2000s. Gun owners, not so much, not in favor of banning those assault-style weapons. And Montez summed that up pretty well, too, because he also kind of said he's not for banning any of these kinds of weapons, even though he would be for some of those more modest restrictions. So we found – it sounds like we found the place where gun owners diverge from non-gun owners. Yeah, and there's plenty more. I mean one of the big issues here for gun owners is this deep distrust of the government.

And one of those things is that a majority of gun owners thinks that it's a slippery slope to have any kind of new gun regulation. It's a slippery slope for the federal government to want to take away all their guns. Domenico, I want to go back to something that you mentioned briefly, which is this idea of distrust in the government or distrust in institutions. What did the poll find there? What does it tell you? Well, as I noted, only about a quarter of gun owners think that the federal government is looking out for people like them. But even worse than that, take a look in the mirror, guys. The news media, only 16% of gun owners say the media is looking out for people like them, which is a real gut punch to people like us who are trying to be a proxy for people.

And there's just that level of trust is just not there overall. You know, and when it comes to issues of concern, like what are people's biggest concerns, in a lot of ways, gun owners are like a lot of other people, most other people, because their biggest concern is the economy and inflation, too. Yeah. All right. Well, we are going to take a quick break. And when we get back, what it means for the country to have such high levels of distrust in institutions. And we're back. And President Biden did sign this gun violence prevention law, but he said that he wants more. And yet the idea of more actually happening seems pretty unlikely in the current political climate. Preventing gun violence is one of these things that's just considered intractable in American politics, actually sort of addressing it head on. Add to that things like abortion, both areas where there is actually broad public support for something, and yet the government hasn't really moved in the direction

of where the public is in terms of what is popular. So how does our political system work like this? Well, our political system works, some people would call it minority rule, some people would call it rule of the supermajority. In other words, it doesn't matter if there's broad agreement from the public. Some of these gun safety measures poll in the 80s, 80% or above approval rating, and some in the 90s. Same thing with abortion. Roe versus Wade has something like two-thirds support from the public who want to keep it in place. But part of it is that when one party's base is so divergent from majority popular opinion, like it is with guns, that makes it very hard for Republicans in Congress to cross the aisle and work on something

bipartisan. But much more importantly, it just takes 60 votes to pass anything in the Senate. And you know, in a parliamentary system, when one party has the control of the entire government, they get a chance to enact their program, Then voters get to vote on whether they like that program or not. And in America, we do it differently. One party gets majority control, they ran on a platform, but they don't get to enact their platform. So voters get frustrated, they get angry. The voters in the majority parties coalition get disappointed and frustrated. And we have gridlock and paralysis. And our system is badly overdue for some reforms, some structural reforms that have happened over time in American history, and it's time for them again.

You know, it occurs to me if any of these items were taken out as a referendum, not that there is such a thing as a national referendum in the United States. But if, say, abortion rights were taken as a referendum, if Roe were put to a vote, it would pass. Or if banning assault weapons were put to a vote, it would narrowly pass. But there is no representative system. It's a pretty convoluted, with several steps to get from what the people say they want to it ever happening. Yeah, and there is sort of a non-binding referendum in this country in the national popular vote, which is another area that's really, I think, Democrats and people on the left see this divergence in this country, where they may have won the popular vote, for example, five of the last six presidential

elections, but in two of those elections, they didn't win the presidency because of the electoral college. And so that kind of arcane system, because of how Democrats live, where they live, redistricting and who controls those districts, despite Democrats continuously winning the National House ballot, for example, wind up losing, in some cases, the U.S. House, or have closer elections than perhaps popular opinion would show. That there are all of these measures, like you talked about, whether it's leaving Roe in place or an AR-15-style semi-automatic weapons ban, that there would be majority support for things like that, but it's just not how the country works. There's a strong federalist undertone in this country, obviously, and you have a Supreme Court now with three justices appointed by former President Trump

who are really kind of putting that on steroids. And when you have institutions like Congress, the Supreme Court, the FBI, the CDC, and us in the news media, all on decline with trust in with the American populace, people seek out other kinds of information and opinions that they feel confirm the things that they believe. And you have this real stretching of the fabric of the country and what it means to be American. I just want to say minority rule is unsustainable. Rights for the minority party is an important part of our system. But to have the minority rule, I don't know how long people will put up with that. Domenico talked about

gerrymandering. In some states, Republicans can get 46% of the statewide vote for their legislatures or congressional delegation and end up with as much as 65% of the seats. You know, that's just unsustainable. But it takes those very institutions we're talking about to change those systems. So it's a bit circular. I'm not sure how it changes, but you would think it would. We're going to have to stop this right there for now. But I feel like I want this conversation to go on forever. And don't worry, dear listeners, we will be back in your feeds with many more conversations about the state of American politics. Tomorrow, though, we're going to be a little bit late because there is another January 6th committee hearing. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover

the White House. I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.