Is it really just a “partisan divide” that means both sides are acting out of nothing more than tribal ID?

Is it really just a “partisan divide” that means both sides are acting out of nothing more than tribal ID?

by digby

Nothing suspicious about any of those secret, private meetings. Nothing at all:

Though President Donald Trump has claimed “complete and total exoneration” based on Attorney General William Barr’s summary of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election, the American public disagrees, according to a new CNN Poll conducted by SSRS. 

A majority (56%) says the President and his campaign have not been exonerated of collusion, but that what they’ve heard or read about the report shows collusion could not be proven. Fewer, 43%, say Trump and his team have been exonerated of collusion.

This is not hard to figure out. We saw the collusion with our own eyes when Trump enthusiastically welcomed their help, even asking them publicly to do more hacking.

We later found out that there were Russians crawling all over the campaign and the entire top level of the Trump campaign was meeting with Russian emmisaries purported to be representing the Russian government about getting “dirt” on Clinton. Trump even announced that he was going to make a yuge speech (never delivered) outlining all the things “the Clintons have done.” And we know not even one of these people went to the FBI to tell them Russian people were inexplicably all over their campaign, even after it was publicly known thathe Russian government was behind the hacking.

None of this may fit Mueller’s of the crime of “tacitly or expressly” conspiring or coordinating with the Russian government in its election interference activities, but people know “collusion” — a non-legal term — when they see it.

Republicans don’t care. Democrats do. You can make your own decision about whether or not that means “both sides” are so partisan that they can’t be trusted or whether it means one side’s brains have been rotted by Fox News.

Although Mueller could not establish Trump or his campaign “conspired or coordinated with” the Russian government, according to Barr’s letter, the poll finds the American people continue to view the issue through partisan lenses.

 Full poll results

Republicans and Democrats are on opposite sides of this question: 77% of Republicans say the President has been exonerated, 80% of Democrats say he has not. Independents break against exoneration — 58% say the President and his campaign were not exonerated.

Those who say they have heard or read “a great deal” about the report (about 23% of the public), however, are more apt to say the President has been cleared: 56% in that group say Trump and his campaign have been exonerated of any collusion, while 44% say it wasn’t exoneration but that collusion could not be proven.

The 43% overall in the new poll saying the President has been exonerated is about the same as the 42% who said in a CNN poll earlier this year that Trump’s campaign did not collude with the Russian government to help get Trump elected. That suggests the summary letter released Sunday did little to move public opinion on this matter.

And most feel the investigation ought not to end with that letter.

Nearly 6 in 10 Americans want to see Congress continue to pursue hearings into the findings of Mueller’s report. Just 43% feel Congress ought to end the investigation completely following the release of Barr’s summary of Mueller’s findings.

Here too, partisan divides are deep. Nearly 9 in 10 Democrats (88%) say Congress ought to hold hearings, while just 17% of Republicans agree.

A CNN Poll conducted before the report was final found that nearly 9 in 10 Americans thought there should be a full, public report on the investigation’s findings, while just 9% felt that was unnecessary. Barr’s letter said his plan was “to release as much of the special counsel’s report as I can” within legal limits. The Department of Justice has said that release will come in weeks, not months.

At this point, without the full report having been released, just 13% say that Mueller’s findings will sway their decision about whom to support in 2020 either way, with 7% saying it makes them more apt to back the President, and 6% less likely to do so. A combined 86% say that they had already figured out whether they would vote for or against Trump, or that the investigation won’t matter to them even though they are undecided now.