COMMENTARY: A hypothetical question with a troubling response

Of course, those are likely the same folks who would continue to support him no matter what he said or recommended.

Don’t forget the president’s own comment during last year’s primary election campaign that he could shoot someone in the street and not lose a single vote. Suffice it to say his supporters are loyal.

The survey published in the Washington Post was carried out by Ariel Malka of Yeshiva University and Yphtach Lelkes of the University of Pennsylvania. It involved interviews with 1,325 Americans in early to mid-June, and it focused on the 650 people who said they were Republicans or leaned in that direction.

And as if that 52 percent figure weren’t high enough, the poll also found that 56 percent of respondents said they would support a delay if it were supported by both the president and Republican members of Congress.

Critics point out that the survey findings come at a time when the president has created a “voter integrity” commission to look at what he perceives to be fraud in the U.S. election system. The commission met for the first time in July.

Trump formed the commission after saying, without evidence, that up to 5 million people voted fraudulently in the 2016 election.

Democrats have been skeptical of the commission, saying its efforts look more like voter suppression than voter integrity. And election experts in both parties have insisted there was no widespread voter fraud. Malka and Lelkes stress that no one has actually proposed delaying the election.

“Our survey is only measuring reactions to a hypothetical situation,” they say. “Were Trump to seriously propose postponing the election, there would be a torrent of opposition, which would likely include prominent Republicans. Financial markets would presumably react negatively to the potential for political instability. And this is to say nothing of the various legal and constitutional complications that would immediately become clear. Citizens would almost certainly form their opinions amid such tumult, which does not at all resemble the context in which our survey was conducted.” However, they insist that the results shouldn’t be simply dismissed because of the indication that a high number of respondents are willing to set aside democratic norms.

Still, it is good to remember that such loyalty might not be limited to the right. In response to all of the outcry over the survey’s findings, a Trump supporter on Twitter noted that it would be interesting to learn how Democrats would have reacted to a similar question referring to President Barack Obama. Would a comparable number have been willing to postpone an election on his recommendation?

I wouldn’t be surprised if the answer were yes.

To be honest, that doesn’t make the finding any less troubling. Can our form of government truly be healthy when so many seem willing to set aside its foundations simply based on party loyalty?

I think we all know the answer to that question.