After 200 Days In Office, Trump’s Job Approval Continues To Slump
After 200 days, President Trump's job approval numbers are hitting new lows.
Yesterday marked Donald Trump’s 200th day in office, and several new polls show the President’s job approval numbers continuing to decline.
First up, a new poll from CNN puts the President’s job approval numbers at the lowest they’ve ever been in that poll, with many respondents saying that they can’t trust what they hear from the White House:
Six months into his presidency, Donald Trump’s overall approval rating stands at its lowest point in CNN polling, while three-quarters of Americans say they can’t trust most of what they hear from the White House.
Overall, 38% say they approve of Trump’s handling of the presidency, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS, with 56% saying they disapprove. Just one other newly-elected president has held an approval rating below 50% at this point in his presidency since modern polling began: Bill Clinton, whose approval rating stood at 44% at this point in 1993.
Enthusiasm breaks against Trump by a 2-to-1 margin. Nearly half in the new poll say they strongly disapprove of Trump’s handling of the job (47%), while just a quarter say they feel strongly positive about Trump’s performance (24%).
Those numbers have soured in recent months, particularly among Trump’s core supporters. Among Republicans, strong approval has dropped from 73% in February to 59% now. Among whites who do not have college degrees, a core component of Trump’s base, just 35% strongly approve, down 12 points since February. At the same time, strong disapproval among Democrats has held steady around 80%.
On top issues, Trump’s approval ratings largely tilt negative. And perceptions of the President as someone who will bring change are fading. Just 43% say Trump can “bring the kind of change the country needs,” down from 48% in April, and the share who say he “can manage the government effectively” now stands at 39%, down from 44% in April.
The poll finds widespread doubts about the veracity of information coming from the White House. Only a quarter of Americans (24%) say they trust all or most of what they hear in official communications from the White House, while more (30%) say they trust “nothing at all” that they hear from the President’s office. (Even among Republicans, only about half say they can trust most of what they hear from the White House.)
Trump’s acumen as a manager and ability to bring change were the brightest spots for the President in polling conducted before he took office. But cracks in Trump’s base of support are evident in the results on those questions now.
Among Republicans and independents who lean Republican, the share saying Trump can manage the government effectively has dipped 10 points since April’s CNN/ORC poll. Among whites without a college degree, just 50% see Trump as an effective manager. Those non-college whites are also less likely to see Trump as a change agent, 58% say so now, down from 64% in April.
Still, these tepid ratings come even as most Americans feel things in the country are going well (53% say so), a number that’s held roughly steady since April.
That positive feeling hasn’t boosted Trump’s ratings on the issues, however. He gets a mixed 48% approve to 47% disapprove rating on national security, and Americans are also divided on his handling of the economy (47% disapprove to 45% approve). On just about every other issue tested, majorities disapprove of Trump’s work, including on health care policy (62%), foreign affairs (61%), immigration (55%) and helping the middle class (54%). Nearly half (48%) disapprove of his handling of taxes while just 34% approve.
Looking back over the first 200 days of Trump’s time in office, just 36% say they consider it a success, and 59% consider it a failure. Both Barack Obama and George W. Bush were viewed as successful at this stage of their presidency by most Americans (56% for Bush, 51% for Obama).
Further, 62% overall say that Trump’s statements and actions since taking office have made them less confident in his ability to be president. Half of whites without college degrees share that view.
The day-to-day operations of the executive branch appear to be chipping away at confidence in Trump and his management style. Most Americans (59%) say Trump hasn’t paid enough attention to the country’s most important problems. About the same number say his management style and the high rate of turnover in the West Wing hurts the administration’s ability to be effective (58%). Slightly more say Trump has done a poor job assembling a team of top advisers to work in the White House (62%, up from 56% saying so in April).
In addition to the CNN poll, a new poll from CBS News shows Trump’s job approval numbers roughly unchanged from the same low number, although he does better in the eyes of the public when it comes to some specific issues. Overall, the poll shows that 36% of respondents approve of the job the President is doing, while 58% disapprove. This is roughly comparable to where the President stood in the last CBS poll in June, which showed 36% approval and 57% disapproval. On specific issues, the CBS News poll shows 46% of respondents approving of the job the President is doing while 45% disapprove. This is likely a reflection of the fact that the public as a whole is currently quite optimistic about the state of the economy itself. In that regard, 69% of respondents said they have a positive view of the economy while 30% have a negative view. That’s a measurable improvement from where things stood earlier this year and, as noted, roughly comparable to where public views on the economy stood in July of 2001 when the economy was just beginning to recover from the modest recession experienced at the end of the Clinton Administration. Trump’s standing on other issues, though, is far less positive. On trade, which was a recurring theme of Trump’s 2016 campaign, only 38% of respondents approve of the job the President is doing while 45% disapprove. Another recurring theme of Trump’s campaign was, of course, immigration and the poll shows the public also largely disapproving of the job the President is doing, with just 37% approving of the job the President is going while 57% disapprove. Finally, on health care, the one issue that Trump has arguably invested the most time trying to lobby Congress since taking office, the poll shows just 32% approve of how the President is handling the issue, while 59% disapprove.
A third national poll from Investors Business Daily and TIPP has Trump’s nationwide numbers in even worse shape:
President Trump’s approval rating dropped 5 percentage points in August to a new low of 32%, according to the latest IBD/TIPP Poll, with 59% saying they disapprove of the job he’s doing as president.
Trump lost significant support across the board, but saw big declines among areas of core support, including Republicans, Midwesterners, middle-income families, white men and the high-school educated. The results come in the wake of the Senate’s failure to repeal ObamaCare, upheavals in the White House staff, the ongoing investigation into Russian meddling in the election, and the daily beatings administered by the mainstream press.
Among Republicans, for example, Trump’s approval rating fell from 83% in July to 71% in August. Trump’s already low approval ratings remained relatively unchanged among Democrats (4%) and independents (30%).
In terms of income, Trump lost the most support from those with household incomes between $30,000 and $50,000. Among this group, Trump’s approval rating dropped from 40% in July to 27% in August.
Trump’s support among white men — the one demographic group who approved of Trump — dropped from 51% in July to 44% in August. The nearby chart shows other groups with big drops in August.
(…)
Worse for Trump, fully 47% of the public now think that talk of impeaching the president is appropriate today, with 50% saying it’s premature.
When IBD/TIPP asked this question in June, only 32% thought it was appropriate to talk about impeaching the president, with 65% saying such talk was premature.
There’s also an interesting poll out from New Hampshire, the state that hosts the first primary in Presidential years, and also the first state that Trump won in his pursuit of the Republican nomination last year:
Ohio Gov. John Kasich leads President Trump in a hypothetical New Hampshire Republican presidential primary matchup, according to a new poll.
An American Research Group poll found that if the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary were held today, Kasich would get 52 percent support, compared to Trump who would receive just 40 percent.
Another 8 percent are undecided.
In a potential primary matchup between Kasich and Vice President Mike Pence, the Ohio governor still holds an advantage, according to the poll.
In that matchup, Kasich garners 41 percent support, compared to Pence, who has 27 percent.
Another 32 percent of respondents said they were undecided.
The poll was conducted from Aug. 4 to 6 among 600 likely Republican presidential primary voters. The margin of error is 4 percent.
This poll was conducted in the wake of a report that Trump had called the Granite State a ‘drug infested den’ in a conversation with the President of Mexico, a report that drew a strong and negative reaction from New Hampshire politicians and citizens.
Looking at the polling averages, we see similar numbers, as well as confirmation that Trump’s numbers, which have been consistently bad virtually from the first day he took office, continue to get worse. In the RealClearPolitics average, for example, Trump’s approval stands at an average of 37.8% approval and 57.0% disapproval. This represents the lowest Trump’s average as calculated by RCP has been, and the highest that his disapproval numbers have reached, since the start of his Presidency, the previous low was 38.6%, which he last reached in mid-June. On specific issues, Trump does slightly better on the economy, with an average rating of 44.1% approval and 46.3% disapproval. On foreign policy, meanwhile, Trump stands at 38.3% approval and 54.8% disapproval. In the Pollster average, meanwhile, Trump’s approval stands at 37. 4% and disapproval stands at 58.5%. Looking at specific subgroups, the President remains wildly unpopular among Democrats, and wildly popular among Republicans, although it’s worth noting that Trump’s approval among Republicans has slipped below 80% and his disapproval is inching ever closer to 20%, a trend that suggests that even Republicans are growing frustrated with the Trump Administration. Among Independents, though, Trump’s numbers are worse than those among the public as a whole, with 33.8% of self-identified Independents saying they approve while 59.4% saying they disapprove. This marks a low point for Trump’s support among self-identified Independents in the Pollster average. Finally, FiveThirtyEight’s polling average, which includes adjustments for factors such as the reliability, recency, sample size, and “partisan lean,” Trump stands at 36.6% approval and 57.5% disapproval. Recent polling also shows that the President’s personal favorability continues to sour. In the RealClearPolitics average, for example, 39.4% say they have a favorable opinion of Trump while 55% say they have an unfavorable view.
As the RealClearPolitics chart shows, the overall trend for Trump’s job approval has been overwhelmingly negative:
All of these numbers continue to show the same thing, namely that Donald Trump is historically unpopular for an incoming, newly-elected President since the time that modern polling began in the wake of World War II. As I’ve noted before, this is significant in no small part due to the fact that history shows us that a President’s job approval numbers during the first term tend to peak within the first six months after he enters office. The only recent exceptions to this rule have been President George W. Bush, who saw his numbers reach massive highs in the wake of the September 11th attacks, which occurred roughly eight months after he took office, and President George H.W. Bush, who reached similar heights of his own in the wake of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent responses of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Additionally, President Clinton’s job approval during his first year in office lagged below the historic average, although with the exception of a brief period in June 1993 he did not reach the lows that Trump is showing this early in his administration and did not show the trend of ever increasing disapproval that we’re seeing for Trump. Outside of these exceptions, which were of course largely impossible to predict beforehand, the general trend among Presidents has been for job approval to drop while disapproval rises, marking the end of what is commonly referred to as the “honeymoon” that most new Presidents get from the public upon entering office.
Trump, of course, has not experienced any honeymoon at all, and that has been at least partly reflected in the fact that his Administration has had no real success in advancing its agenda in the roughly six and a half months it has been in office. The one exception to this observation has been the confirmation of Justice Neal Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, although it’s worth noting that this would not have been possible but for the decision by Senate Republicans to follow Harry Reid’s lead and eliminate the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees. Other than that, none of the major agenda items on Trump’s agenda have gotten very far. His Muslim Travel Ban has been limited in its impact by rulings from the Federal Courts, his efforts to punish so-called sanctuary cities are largely on hold due to lawsuits filed by localities around the country, and most of the legislation he has signed into law has consisted of relatively minor Congressional action to roll back some regulations imposed by the Obama Administration. On other major issues, the President has largely been undermined by members of his own party. The effort to ‘repeal and replace’ the Affordable Care Act, for example, appears moribund now in the wake of one bill that barely passed the House of Representatives and a Senate proposal that ended up dying a dramatic death at the hands of Senator John McCain and two other Republicans. Efforts to revive the health care debate, or to move forward significantly on issues such as tax reform, appear unlikely at least in the short term given that Congress will likely be focused on passing a new budget when it returns from its recess after Labor Day. Finally, hanging over all of this is the ever-evolving investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials both during and after the election, an investigation that seems to be getting ever closer to Trump and his business interests.
One impact of all of this, of course, have been signs that Republicans on Capitol Hill are beginning to assert their independence from the White House in a wide variety of ways. With regard to the Russia investigation, the bipartisan membership of both the House and Senate Intelligence Committees is moving forward with their investigations. Additionally, suggestions that Trump could seek to fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions and/or special prosecutor Robert Mueller have led Republicans to object strongly and take actions to prevent Trump from acting on those apparent threats. Finally, Trump’s recent endorsement of a bill that would cut legal immigration by 50% has fallen on largely deaf ears in both the House and the Senate, with House Speaker Paul Ryan saying that he doubts the proposal would have much luck in the House, and Republican Senators saying much the same thing. If Trump’s numbers continue to deteriorate, it’s likely that we’ll see additional signs of Republicans asserting their independence from the White House, a factor that could play an interesting role in the 2018 midterm elections. All in all then, it looks like rough times ahead for the President unless the seemingly unlikely happens and he manages to turn these numbers around.
Update: This post was updated to include the results of a third nationwide poll, from Investors Business Daily and TIPP, that was released shortly after the poll went live. The averages were also updated to the extent that they include the results of this poll at the time of this update. The post was also updated to reflect the fact that President Clinton also had issues with low job approval during his first year in office, although not neverly as severe as those we are seeing for President Trump.
It gets worse, actually. The IBD/TIPP poll has him at 32% approval this morning, and apparently he’s losing among his base. Investor’s Business Daily was one of his boosters, too.
Sad, right?
Aren’t you forgetting about Bill Clinton? He began his presidency with mediocre ratings, but they rose significantly during his second term. While he never reached the highs of the Bushes after 9/11 or Desert Storm, he did briefly get to the 70s in the wake of the impeachment, and he left office in the mid-60s, the highest ever recorded for a departing president.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_image_of_Bill_Clinton#Public_approval
Yes but Trump is addressing this #FakeNews problem: he’s attacking Senator Richard Blumenthal on a daily basis in order to shore up his approval ratings. #winning
Trump is so ‘presidential.’
The trend-line is, and has been, unmistakable for some time. And draft-dodging Donnie shows no capacity for changing it. Just one Deep-Water Horizon or Katrina type crisis and he is through. Then Mike Pence, the second dumbest guy in any elected office anywhere, will no longer have to hide his run for 2020.
Anyone who voted for this buffoon has serious mental-health issues. Anyone who still supports him should be institutionalized.
The last time he got a 36% approval rating, he touted it on Twitter as “almost 40%,” and “not bad.” I wonder what it must be like to dwell completely within your own self-created reality.
Lots of rural dumbasses still like him.
@Daryl’s other brother Darryl:
Does that list include Dan “Potatoe” Quayle?
Oh no! If Trump’s popularity ratings don’t improve in the next three and a half years, he may only be reelected by a similar Constitutional majority as he was in 2016.
@Daryl’s other brother Darryl:
But outside of Hurricane Katrina, 9/11, Hurricane Sandy, the Great Recession, and the Great Depression, what major disasters have ever started in late summer/early autumn?
@JKB:
Six months in and you’re already down to “We might be able to eke out a 2nd electoral advantage” as an argument.
Feel good?
@Tony W:
Basic comparison…Quayle:Pence = Stephen Hawking:coal
The NYT and others have reported pretty clear evidence that Pence is planning on running in 2020. He’s even raising money. In June he traveled to Iowa, ostensibly to boost trump’s destroy-health-care bill.
Trumpinator will first realize that Pence is trying to usurp him, then he’ll be told multiple times that he has no power to fire pence, then it’ll be Popcorn City.
@CSK:
What’s especially funny about that is 36% is lower than Obama ever got during his entire presidency.
@Neil Hudelson:
I’m not sure of your point. Trump could poll at zero in CA and NY and it wouldn’t matter except for his national average. But in presidential elections, it’s not the national average that matters.
In any case, people always bitch and moan during the demolition phase of a project. But as everyone knows, proper prep work is 90% of the job. Trump is accomplishing, but others like to argue not, so we’ll just have to wait and see the impact in the next year or so.
Maxine Waters proclaims they’ll be impeaching Trump over Christmas, which will make for an exciting 2018 election season.
Slightly OT, but endlessly entertaining: A major rift is developing between Trumpkins who believe McMaster is a Soros-funded spawn of Satan (Breitbart) and Trumpkins who believe McMaster is The Second Coming (The Conservative Treehouse).
@Kylopod:
I know. Trump’s capacity for rationalization is endless. He has that in common with his cult members.
@JKB:
As I pointed out to you the last time you made this argument, Trump had low favorability ratings even within the crucial states that handed him his electoral victory, such as Florida, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. He won those states not because he was popular there, but because just enough voters in those states became victim to the delusion that however bad he was, Hillary was worse. And there’s been evidence his ratings have been sinking in those states, not just nationwide.
So your whole attempt to treat the states that gave him his electoral majority like they’re completely unconnected to his nationwide standing is faulty. He won those states by the narrowest of margins, meaning the coalition that brought him to power is as fragile as you can get. Bad national numbers may not necessarily spell doom for him, but they aren’t something to gloat about either.
@CSK:
Could this be the beginning of a Sunni/Shia split within the Trump movement?
@Neil Hudelson:..Feel good?
What feels good to JKB is that his pervert boyfriend Republican President Pork Chop Pud is a self confessed active sexual molester of women.
@JKB:
Hows that kool-aid taste? What flavor is your favorite? Tweetberry? Lyingberry? Collusion Punch?
By the man’s own words he is failing, and failing miserably. So much winning, Indeed.
I understand it takes sycophants, like you, some time to come to reality, if they are capable of ever doing that.
Stop on back when you can offer something real.
@Daryl’s other brother Darryl:
Probably tastes like snozzberries
@Kylopod:
Good comparison. It may well turn out to be a Sunni/Shia split. Breitbart is more or less obliged to trash McMaster, since McMaster is feuding with Bannon, Breitbart’s ex-eminence grise. The Conservative Nuthouse is backing McMaster because Trump–for the moment, anyway–loves McMaster, and what Trump loves, everyone should love.
@Kylopod:
You are correct, and I’ve previously noted that fact in other posts about Trump’s job approval. I updated the post to make note of the Clinton exception.
@Kylopod:
More like Dumb/Dumber
@CSK:
IBD/TIPP actually ended up being one of the most accurate nationwide polls during the 2016 cycle.
In any case, I have updated the post to include the new poll and updated the averages that reflect the IBD poll.
@Tony W:
I had no idea what a snozzberry was. Now I do. So thanks for that. I think.
Trump retweets Fox News story containing classified info
Is this a treasonous act committed by Commander in Chief Pud?
@teve tory:
I’m betting that Trump won’t listen to those who tell him that he has no power to can Pence, and that he’ll try to do it anyway. Popcorn futures are indeed looking good.
@Mister Bluster:
Sadly, Donnie didn’t commit treason by retweeting the Fox story. But I’d love to know who leaked it, and why.
@Tony W:
Awwwwww man…
Sometimes you just don’t wanna know.
🙁
He might lie to himself to avoid having to deal with the fact that he’s stuck with the disloyal Pence, conceivably for 3 more years. Cuz if he faces that fact, day after day, he’s gonna rickety-wreck it.
@teve tory:
Maybe he’ll take to Twitter and start trashing Pence the way he did Sessions, in the hope that Pence will bail. Didn’t work with Sessions, of course.
And what if we get to 2019 and Pence is openly flying around campaigning for himself while being Veep??!?!?!?!?!
@teve tory: I’m hoping that in 2019 Pence is still veep and openly flying around. I hope Trump stays in office because Pence as president would be much worse that Trump because even if he is as dense as they say the republican government would be much more efficient and do much more mischief against the country.
@JKB:
I see what you did there: “Constitutional majority” = installed as president despite losing the popular vote, right?
Offered as a side debate: Does JKB, a) really hold these positions and b) keep on coming back to get thrashed, or is he simply a classic troll, i.e. someone who simply takes a position to cause other posters to get their panties in a twist?
FWIW, I think Tyrell may very well be the best classic troll I have ever witnessed.
Bear this in mind: these are Trump’s numbers when the economy is strong and our various wars are largely forgotten. He has no reservoir of support if things go wrong. And he has no credibility. The WaPo says DIA has decided North Korea has miniaturized ICBM-ready warheads. . . but Trump says we shouldn’t trust the intel community. So who is he going to rally behind whatever war he’ll inevitably try to start?
My son is 17. I don’t want him going off to fight a Trump war. If we need to go to war, he needs to be removed from office first.
@al-Alameda: The GOP has lost the popular vote in what, 6 out of the last 7 elections? People really don’t like them. But the system is biased toward the less-productive states, so republicans have an advantage.
@MarkedMan:
That’s my position as well. No Trump war. We need to the best of our ability to freeze this clown in situ, wait for a grown-up president, and assess the situation then.
@michael reynolds: “Trump says we shouldn’t trust the intel community. So who is he going to rally behind whatever war he’ll inevitably try to start?”
If he needs it, the intel community will suddenly be the Gold Standard.
Like when the economic numbers showed 4.something % unemployment when obama was in office, it was a lie, the books are cooked, the numbers are rigged, the real number is 40%, etc. Then he becomes president, and the unemployment number is 4.something, and it’s amazing, it’s tremendous, nobody could have imagined such a great number, etc etc.
His supporters don’t mind hearing obvious lies, so why should he mind telling them?
@JKB: He’s accomplished WHAT?!
Aside from getting a “conservative” on SCOTUS, which was about as difficult as my dog eating the chunk of beef I drop into his mouth, what has President Trump done except whining like the worst toddler, insulting everyone, and totally ignoring the responsibilities of the office?
So this is a bit off-topic, but it comes back to the same thing:
Did you read the tweet-storm Dumb Don unleashed on Blumenthal?
Now…I’m no big fan of my Senator from CT…in fact I think he’s a dick. (Pun intended)
But the manner in which JKB’s Orange Idol went after him is untenable. It was ad hominem, hyperbolic, hypocritical, and above all else…simply juvenile. This 70 year old child is simply not someone who is representative of the best of this nation. Forget policy differences (as if Trump understands anything about policy), this is about basic character. The POTUS is manifestly devoid of character, and that cannot, and will not, lead to good outcomes.
@michael reynolds:
Those are my thoughts as well. If God forbid there’s a 9/11 level event, I don’t think he’d be able to stage-manage the aftermath to his advantage the way Bush did, and in any case, one thing people forget about Bush is that before we went into Iraq–and especially before the Iraq War turned sour–there wasn’t a huge reservoir of people who absolutely hated his guts. Of course Dems were mighty pissed about the Florida recount and the Supreme Court, but his 90% ratings after 9/11 would never have been possible if the majority of Dems hadn’t been willing to give him a chance.
What’s ironic is that I’m not sure he’d be capable of getting us to an Iraq-level catastrophe. Bush was just competent enough to lead us into a disastrous war before he proceeded to totally bungle it. I’m not sure Trump could get us even that far. But in no way do I find that reassuring, because there are plenty of ways thousands of Americans can die without a president intentionally putting them in harm’s way.
@Daryl’s other brother Darryl:
Michelle Obama has said, more than once, “I’ve seen firsthand that being president doesn’t change who you are. It reveals who you are.”
President Trump proves her right every day.
@Mikey:
According to the Toronto Star after 200 days in office Don-the-Con has told 500 lies, or 2.5 lies per day.
https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2017/08/08/daniel-dales-donald-trump-fact-check-updates.html
@Daryl’s other brother Darryl:
This tweetstorm apparently followed Blumenthal’s appearance on CNN. It occurred to me that if Blumenthal limited his attacks on Trump to NPR, Trump would never see it coming or know of its existence. Morning Edition could take down the entire administration before he found out anything about it (assuming they reported it on Fox).
@teve tory:
Keep in mind that the Dems actually enjoyed a slight EC advantage in 2012. Most people didn’t notice it because Obama ended up scoring a decisive victory in both the popular vote and the EC, but there was a period of weeks when Romney was leading the national vote while trailing in the states he needed to win. And even at the end, in order to change the outcome of the race Romney would have had to pick up at least one state that Obama carried by more than 5 percentage points, yet Obama only won the national vote by 3.9%. FiveThirtyEight calculated that even if Romney had been leading the national vote by 1 percent, he’d probably have lost the election.
There was, however, one person on Election Night 2012 who briefly got the impression Obama was losing the popular vote while winning the EC, and he called for the EC to be abolished. Take a big guess who that person was.
@Kylopod:
Unfortunately, I think starting a war with North Korea could fall into this category, with the potential to dwarf it. Look at a frigging map. The Bush/Cheney war was mostly confined to the middle east and Afghanistan. There were no economic or military first raters involved. North Korea is surrounded by heavy, heavy hitters. And there is no reservoir of good will anywhere in the world for Trump now, and that is slowly congealing into no reservoir of good will for the US. Rightly or wrongly we will be blamed for the loss of life that follows. And if nuclear fallout drifts across the Asian continent, I shudder to think what the consequences will be. What do you think the reaction of our decades long allies of Japan and North Korea will be if people start dying in their cities? Not to mention nuclear armed China. And when the sh*t hits the fan, how much domestic support will there be for Trump’s war?
@Kylopod: HA!
@MarkedMan: There are literally dozens of hardened artillery positions on the NK side of the border, some of which could hit Seoul, a city of 10 million people. Also there are a couple-dozen-thousand US troops around there, and nuclear fallout would land on friendly countries whatever direction it went. A big war with north korea would be a catastrophe.
That said, presidents usually try to sell a war before they order it. Maybe trump would just shout “Bomb them now!”, violating that norm just like he violates every other. But if he did have to work at it, he would probably fail. Like Charles Blow said a day or two ago, “The only thing that holds the line against absolute calamity is the fact that Trump lacks focus and hates work.”
@teve tory: Trump has just threatened NK with “fire and fury.”
So, this will end well, I think.
FAN-TASTIC
But you losers wake up every afternoon and he’s still president and you’re useless POS
Zogby is giving Trump a 45% approval rating. He’ll be Twittering non-stop about what a triumph that is.
@bandit:
As long as that’s his only accomplishment, we can live with that.
Slightly OT, but I was always astounded at Bill Clinton’s 70% approval just as he was being impeached. And also how this factored into Hillary’s defeat in 2016.
You see, in order for bill to have gotten that 70%, WOMEN gave him an almost unheard of 90% approval rating!!!!!! Men split on Bill 50/50, ergo to get to 70%, women went ape-schite for him.
Why? Lets face it, a cheating husband is almost universally reviled by women. Add to that, being a liar and you have just about alienated every woman anywhere.
But Bill was not seen as a cheater by women. In fact, because Hillary was the shrew, cold wife, Bill got a pass. Women blamed HILLARY on Bill cheating.
“That poor Bill, such a nice guy, he only cheated because Hillary is such a beatch. If Bill were my husband, I would give him the love and attention he deserves! No wonder he needed to find some lovin’ with that intern. If Hillary was my wife, I’d cheat too.”
Now, most of you deniers, will think this crazy, but I saw focus group results at the time and this was very much evident – Women did not like Hillary, thus Bill got a pass. He was a charming, smarmy shyster bad boy married to an asexual, unfeeling ice woman.
Again, just how did Bill get to 70% when we all know men did not like him that much. Its a statistical fact that women rallied around him, not men.
Which brings us to 2016 and the fact that a pussy grabbing misogynist took the women’s vote by a 5% margin.
Simply astounding really. Women intensely dislike Hillary and that cost her the election, so please stop with the “voters are idiots” excuse. The only idiots are the Dem establishment who forced fed the Hill on the party.
@the Q: I am not sure where you’re getting your figures, but if Bill was more popular among women than men, there’s a simple reason, and it has nothing to do with his personality, but with the fact that going back at least to the 1980s, women have leaned more Democratic than men. (This wasn’t easy to detect in the ’80s when Reagan was winning in such overwhelming numbers that he won both the male and female vote; however, his support from men was still stronger.) Hillary actually won the women vote by about the same percentage as Bill did in 1996 (~54%), and by a much larger percentage than 1992.
@the Q: Aren’t you a little old to still be scarred by the fact that girls wouldn’t go out with you in high school?
Dwayne Johnson 2020
@the Q: I can’t seem to find gallup numbers broken down by sex in the 90’s, but in the 2 polls i found from 2006 and 2012, men and women supported Bill Clinton very similarly.
http://media.gallup.com/POLL/Releases/pr060725v.gif
http://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Production/Cms/POLL/q2ci7r9prkuetbxdcxv8-a.gif
@Tyrell: Well, if he runs as a republican he’ll have trouble.
“I have good friends who are politicians on both sides. Clinton is a good buddy of mine, Obama is a good buddy of mine. A multitude of people who are buddies.”
…and he distanced himself from trump when asked.
The last sentence from that linked article…
I was going to comment on the irony of that until I read further down this thread and saw this…
As politically incorrect as it is to say (you’d think these people would like that, wouldn’t you?), Hillary Clinton was right…there really is a section of Trump supporters who are totally f@cking deplorable…a pity she got grief for telling the truth…
@An Interested Party: You raise an interesting point when you describe Hillary’s “deplorables” remark as “politically incorrect.” Whenever people declare that they are about to state something “not PC,” what they are implying is that it’s something a lot of people don’t want to hear but which is nonetheless true. In practice, however, almost everyone who uses this phrase is saying something which they want to hear. That’s what’s so phony about the expression: people use it to make it sound like they’re courageously confronting a hard truth, when in reality all they’re usually doing is trying to justify whatever they want to believe in the face of other people’s negative reactions to it.
And whenever someone running for elected office describes their own remarks as “not PC,” you can be pretty damn sure they aren’t about to say anything they believe will truly turn away their supporters. It goes in tandem with “tell it like it is” (a phrase that goes back at least to George Wallace). Politicians who say they’re telling it like it is are, for the most part, telling their supporters exactly what they want to hear.
And that’s just what Trump did. He said he would bring back industrial jobs. He said he would develop a health care plan that would take care of everyone, for less money. He said he would build a border wall and get Mexico to pay for it.
All politicians make grandiose promises. But Trump’s are unique in how deeply untethered they are from reality, or even from anything concrete or specific. He once said he would not cut Social Security or Medicare because “I think what I’d do is make the country so rich that you wouldn’t have to bother.” No matter what the issue, Trump’s approach is simply to declare, without recognition of tradeoffs or sacrifices, that he’ll just make all the problems magically disappear.
And this is the guy who is telling us things that are “politically incorrect.”
@An Interested Party:
Indeed. It would appear that we thought that they’re all stupid (and indeed, I would still wager that quite a few of them are stupid), while a large chunk of them just seem to be children motivated by a fit of pique.
I’m not sure which one is worse (or more damning for democracy).
@HarvardLaw92: A lot of people want to be told what they want to hear and don’t have the guts to insist on reality instead. With the usual negative results.
Remember how the Challenger blew up? Because a bunch of executives insisted that “you take off your engineering hat and put on your management hat.” They wanted to be told that there was little risk with the launch. And we all know what happened….
THIS is what will do in the US in the end. We’ve been developing cultures, both on the far left and on the right, who insist on being told lovely ego-massaging fairy stories rather than reality.
@An Interested Party:
I’m sure the guy meant, “you fancy elites hate me for speaking my mind.” But we actually hate trump for being sexist, fraudulent, crooked, obnoxious, entitled, abusive, degrading, and a compulsive liar. The guy was inadvertently insulting himself. Just being dumb–which we actually don’t hate him for. Then bandit comes along and reminds us lots of them are, in fact, just deplorable people.
In the end, obnoxious assholes tend to lose, and demographics are not in the Trumpers’ favor, so we’ll pull through. After much suck.
@teve toryDid those numbers show the percentage of cigar smokers?
@Tyrell: Did you know that ‘Cigar Aficionado’ did a presidential preference poll during the last election? Trump over Hil by 67% to 32%.
Thanks for reminding us of the decisive importance of the cigar-smoking demographic.
@MarkedMan:
Never. David Brooks is, and will continue to be until NYT fires his lazy ass, the world’s champion concern troll.
@gVOR08: Brooks is in an existential dilemma. He was hired as a “reasonable right winger” precisely at a time when the American Right is a rudderless parody of itself. He can’t bring himself to go full on Fox News* so instead he has shifted to talking about values and minor philosophy.
*… and the NY Times probably wouldn’t accept that level of stupidity – remember, the NYTimes pitches advertisers with the idea that its readers are intelligent decision makers, while Fox’s main pitch is that its viewers are gullible drones that can be easily led into buying whatever crap you put in front of them.
@teve tory:
The real pity is that the guy who’s emotionally invested in Trump probably believes that Trump looks on him as an equal or a spiritual brother. Wrong. Trump thinks this guy is, at best, a disposable commodity.
With Trump’s well-documented history of cheating and exploiting small contractors and laborers, you would have to be seriously delusional to believe he’s on your side.
@CSK:
Yeah. Trump has only ever demonstrated one competence: Taking advantage of people who don’t know any better.
@teve tory:
Hey, you’ve got to take your advantages wherever they are in times like these. We need to be grateful right now that Trump and the GOP are lazy, scatterbrained, and incompetent; it’s our best hope for the future.
@Tyrell: And, that, in a nutshell (pun intended), is how we got to where we are, ladies and gentlemen. Tyrell is the geographic majority of the country. We are surely and truly hosed.
@Just ‘nutha ig’nint cracker:
Maybe. But is Tyrell a real person?
@Just ‘nutha ig’nint cracker:
Anonymous white house staff are now talking shit about McConnell, and Lou Dobbs is tweeting “Ditch Mitch”.
Maybe they can keep the backstabbing and infighting going for the next 3 years and leave the rest of us out of it.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/9/16118536/mitch-mcconnell-scavino-trump
@teve tory: Exactly. Keep them working on what’s been important up til now–sabotaging the work of Congress and each other.
My new hobby is tweeting @POTUS and asking him if it bothers him that Pence is obviously gearing up to run against him in 2020.
In a new poll, half of Republicans say they would support postponing the 2020 election if Trump proposed it
@teve tory:
I’m surprised the number isn’t higher.
Authoritarianism and Republicanism are highly correlated in America today.