WASHINGTON — On Friday, $85 billion in spending cuts intended to be so painful and stupid that they would never come into effect started to come into effect.

There is plenty of blame to go around, but the so-called sequestration looks set to only add to the unpopularity of what has become one of America’s most loathed political institutions: Congress.

In a recent New York Times/CBS News poll, Americans gave the House and Senate just a 12 percent approval rating, up barely a smidgen from its all-time low. Dozens of other polls conducted in the past year or two have shown Congress to be deeply despised. But even Congress has its supporters, and not just paid staff members or blood relatives, as Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, likes to joke. After all, one in eight Americans still gives the institution a thumbs-up.

In follow-up interviews, those respondents to the Times poll gave a complicated and contradictory set of reasons for looking at Congress through rose-colored glasses. Several backtracked or qualified their support when asked to describe what they found so appealing about the institution. The words “idiots” and “ninnies” came up. One respondent described his positive response as accidental. Another mentioned she had been recovering from a recent surgery.