Well, it’s official!
Matt Gaetz is the #1 most loathed person working in the United States government. And in a world of Donald Trumps, MTGs, and George Santoses, that’s saying a lot.
A new poll from the Florida Atlantic University Mainstreet PolCom Lab has found the gay-hating congressman is disliked by, well, pretty much everybody–Democrats, Republicans, and all those in between–since that stunt he pulled back in October when he led the charge to have Kevin McCarthy ousted from the speakership, sending Congress into chaos and paving the way for Mike Johnson, the most vehemently anti-LGBTQ+ House Speaker in modern history.
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The poll, which surveyed 946 voters in Florida, shows a whopping 57% of them disapprove of Gaetz’s performance. Even worse, the poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2%, which means that number could be as high as 60%.
Meanwhile, the survey found that just 21% of voters approved of the job Gaetz has been doing, while 8% were neutral, and 14% didn’t know.
Not surprisingly, Democrats disapproved of him the most, at 82.9%, followed by independents, at 53.8%. But even among a large percentage of members from his own party, Gaetz is not well-liked, with 36% of Republicans saying they despise him.
All this jives with a report from CBS News last month, in the days immediately following McCarthy’s historic ousting, in which several of Gaetz’s constituents were asked their feelings about the 41-year-old accused sexual predator.
“He’s a dirtbag person,” one person said.
“He does what he does to get on TV,” another added.
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“We don’t deserve you.”
To make matters worse, a new report published by The Daily Beast reveals that, in addition to being loathed by voters, Gaetz seems to be equally hated among his GOP colleagues.
Rep. Dusty Johnson of South Dakota, for instance, called him “a pretty diabolical character” and said you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone willing to “go out of their way to defend Matt Gaetz.”
Meanwhile, Rep. Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota said “Matt probably has the most ire directed towards him”, adding that, while he’s good at some parts of his job, he “revels in the conflict”, which is part of what makes him so damn annoying.
And Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska added his co-workers are still pretty angry at him and “I just think there will be long memories because he did serious damage to our House conference.”
In a scatching op-ed published this week by The Hill, writer and Fox News analyst Juan Williams declared Gaetz’s 2023’s “politician of the year”… but he didn’t mean it as a compliment.
Writes Williams:
Gaetz deserves a place in history. He is a living monument to an era of elected Republican officials with no interest in governing…
…With his hands on the wheel and driving toward revenge and chaos — all to raise his personal profile and stir up small, online donations — Gaetz crashed the House of Representatives in a ditch on a low road.
As a result of his tactics, the people’s House, one of the world’s great democratic institutions, is now commonly derided by citizens on the left and right as a clown show.
A clown show, indeed.
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Covid Hermit
And yet, sadly, he will easily be re-elected next year. Which says something pretty sad about our politics…and his constituents…
LumpyPillows
We should make every effort to unseat him anyway. When there is blood in the water, sometimes it works.
RIGay
Unless he resigns in order to run to replace De Taintstain as governor, he’ll keep getting re-elected over and over again. It’s how the GQP works.
Kangol2
DeFascist is governor until 2026. He was reelected in 2022. So Pedo Gaetz would have one more potential go-round in Congress before the next Florida gubernatorial election.
Jim
NO NO NO NO. Cancun Cruz is the most hated.
Oh, and Chip Roy is an up and comer
DeeAnnCA
Geez, more than Ted Cruz? That’s saying something, but they are both so deserving. Some people don’t come with the idea of actually governing. They come with the idea of increasing their personal power and wealth. Getting elected is just a means to an end.
bachy
Where are all these survey respondents when it comes time to vote?
inbama
That has always been the problem in the U.S.
randeman
And yet, odds are, the human toilet paper that is the right would still vote for him.