American Public Believes Government Gridlock Will Continue

While the Republicans are celebrating their November victory, giving them control of both houses of Congress, the American people know this is not a victory for the country as a whole. They fully expect business as usual to continue -- which means government gridlock will continue, and nothing important will be done to solve the nation's problems.

Note that only 13% of Americans think the new Republican Congress and President Obama will be able to cooperate and get anything substantial done, while a whopping 86% expect gridlock to continue (which means even most Republicans think gridlock will continue).

And if the Republicans think the continuing gridlock will be blamed on the president now, they are mistaken. As the bottom chart shows, a plurality of 41% says both the president and Congress would be to blame, while 35% would blame the GOP Congress and only 22% would blame President Obama.

What most Americans want is for Congress and the president to compromise for the good of the country -- the kind of compromise that used to be possible before the extremists took over the Republican Party (and made compromise a dirty word in that party).

These charts were made from information in a new AP-GfK Poll -- done between December 4th and 8th of a random national sample of 1,010 adults, with a 3.4 point margin of error.