Want proof that nothing matters?
President Trump’s approval rating has climbed to match the highest of his presidency, boosted by majority approval of his economic stewardship even as Americans remain deeply divided on whether the Senate should remove him from office, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.
The Post-ABC poll finds 44 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s overall job performance and 51 percent disapprove. While views of Trump remain negative, Trump’s approval rating is significantly improved from his 38 percent mark in late October.
I need a pep talk, people.
Noise. Just like the stock market, they always want to attribute some random fluctuation as significant and due to some effect they essentially pulled out of their rear ends. We will see where his approval is at the end of the impeachment hearings, I doubt it gets better and most likely gets worse. The thing is, about a third of the country are cultists and probably can’t be reasoned with, so it seems like he has a pretty solid floor that will support him no matter what, and I’m guessing that they are in the demographic that are more likely to respond to polls.
Yeah, well, maybe it’s just noise. It’s also entirely possible it’s not or (even worse) that *both* polls are understating Trump’s support. This is why looking at aggregated polling numbers tends to be better for one’s mental health.
Any incumbent president with a growing economy and low unemployment rate 6-12 months before the election is tough to beat, even one as bad at his job as Trump is. This is the country that twice elected Andrew Jackson president, elected Fillmore, Pierce, and Buchanan to consecutive terms, and 70 years later did the same with Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover.
Add in the fact that Trump’s been working for months already to fix the election, has an AG who will let him, and appears to have the backing of virtually his entire party (and its stolen majority on the Supreme Court).
What House Democrats have done over the past four months with Trump’s impeachment needs to be sustained and repeated in multiple arenas—the Senate, the judiciary, the presidential race, hundreds of other federal and state races, various social, economic, and political movements, campaigns and organizations—over the next 9 months to have a decent chance at defeating Trump.
The good news is that this is entirely possible. Additional good news is that the pressure created by anything approximating this level of political pressure on Trump and his party stands a good-to-excellent chance of causing a break in their walls of defense.
Yeah, I’d say this is noise. But who knows? It’s horrible to watch.
I am at least grateful that when Trump is not convicted by the Senate, no one will be able to say that the acquittal was due to an incompetent presentation by the Democrats.
Feels like you’re underestimating the power of Murc’s law
I had a friend last week say something to effect of “The economy is doing great – unemployment is at historic lows.” And I asked: “Sure, unemployment is low, but what kind of jobs are people getting? Are they good-paying jobs with career prospects and a nice suite of benefits?” My friend had not even thought about the jobs numbers in those terms . . . . sigh.
I think that willful blindness is part of the reason Trump’s approval is where it is.
And, it turns out that there are a lot more stupid Americans in this country than I believed possible.
Whenever someone gives me the “low unemployment” excuse, I always respond with, “Funny how the last guy’s numbers were fake, but now they’re suddenly real. Because as we all know, Donald Trump never cooks the books.” They never get beyond futile sputtering on that one.
The point is that you should look at polling averages and stop writing anything …not one damn thing…about any individual polls. How many times to I have to tell you? Individual polls are noisy. STOP WRITING ABOUT INDIVIDUAL POLLS. You’re welcome.
I wouldn’t focus on a single poll, but polling aggregates do imply that the impeachment story has had little discernible effect on Trumps (dis)approval ratings, which are fairly flat overt time since midsummer. So I agree with Martin that thats disheartening, although I never expected much different (being a pessimist at heart). I guess the point of the process for dems is to get the facts on the record, and to at least try to hold this corrupt administration to account. Maybe there will be more of a beneficial effect of the impeachment on Senate elections, although there’s little proof of that either AFAIK. Mainly the point for me is to underline how broken our system of government is. Thats one of the better arguments for a “change” candidate, and may be why Sanders is getting more traction these days.
As wonderful a job as the Dem impeachment managers did, and as much as Schiff exhorted the Gravedigger’s braindead majority to recognize the clear and present danger to the nation, The Trial of Der Trumper was always about posterity and the last hurrah of the Old Constitution. The Dems did what was required by the sclerotic, 18th Century document (whose manifest failures got us into this mess in the first place), but the cancer and gangrene had become too general for the most expert surgery to accomplish anything.
The 46% showed in 2016 that American self-governance and rationality were things of the past, since by actually taking the amoral fool and conman Donald Trump as a serious and qualified candidate, they demonstrated that the brains of each one of them had been destroyed and could not be restored to responsible citizenship. And now, just as psychology predicted, when mountains of evidence of abuse of office are revealed for all to see, the “conservative” and independent braindead double down on their denial, because (just like global warming) more evidence only entrenches them deeper into their emotion-based delusions.
Like the Good Germans of the Hitler movement, only Gotterdammerung can reach them now, and by then the democratic patient will have expired. But it was a noble effort by Dems, all that could reasonably have been expected of them, and of a failed nation.
I don’t like to indulge in gloom and doom, but you’re saying what I think is on a lot of our minds. I hope we’re wrong.
The idiots who still approve of Dear Leader are at least getting what they voted for — a consistent, unified “go to hell” message for the people they hate. The people who disapprove may be getting split somewhat by the gaslighting of the corporate media, but it has always been thus.
The Democrats have conducted the rigged impeachment trial about as well as they possibly could, given the circumstances. They didn’t count on having to deal with full-on traitors. But once you’re this far in, you have to play to win, rather than just playing to not lose. You know what I mean? There should be more articles of impeachment drawn up already, and investigative hearings being prepared or underway. He’s openly violating the emoluments clause on a constant basis, openly monetizing US foreign policy, and plenty of other issues. They could easily have a dozen articles of impeachment. It was a mistake to stop at just two. Hit him on every possible thing. Try harder to shake those tax returns loose, they’re the Rosetta Stone to his decades of laundering bratva money.
It’s like watching a street brawl where one person scratches the other, just hoping to draw a little blood, when they should be punching them in the throat, kicking their nuts, punching the temple, boxing the ears, etc. The other guy is fighting dirty every step of the way, and here they are with their Marquess of Queensberry rules, just hoping to land a jab. The Republicans are perfectly happy with open treason, and need to be addressed as such. Say what you will about them, they are not concerned with the inane fripperies of “collegiality” and “civility.”
Until that happens, yeah, the state is being hollowed out while we watch. Sorry to be doom-and-gloom about it, but on the other hand, if everyone just shows up for every election, they’ll create a margin that can’t be overcome with the usual cheating. Cancel your New York Times subscription, boycott CBS “News” and the rest of them, and resolve to show up in November. Throw a couple shekels to the down-ticket races and get the traitors out of the Senate. Boycott the assholes and enablers. If enough people do those simple things, the margin will move.
That’s about all anyone can do, and if it still doesn’t work, then maybe the patient is dead after all, and it’s time to check out real estate in Canada or Ireland or Spain or whatever. I think sometimes we cling too tightly to these high-flown notions of ‘murkin greatness, when there has always been a mighty undercurrent of smallness and corruption and pure venality and spite. Let the maga babies have their bottle, and watch them all die young when he takes their SS and Medicare, and screws over their access to even basic health care. We can’t spend the rest of our lives trying to talk morons out of their tree.
I should apologize, I think, as the post is clearly looking for some glimmer of hope, and I went full Eeyore.
So on the flip side, I would keep the following in mind:
Mobilize, motivate, boycott, donate, show up. All of us can do all of those things (except maybe donating). Let’s do as much as we can. We might be surprised at the results. The billionaires who own the corporate media ecosystem want to demoralize us. It’s up to us whether we let them do that or not.