Trump's approval rating drops to 35%

Discussion in 'Political Discussions' started by Abner, Aug 23, 2017.

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  1. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

  2. me again

    me again Well-Known Member

    1. That's the same approval rate that was being reported before President Trump got elected.
    2. That's the same approval rate that was being reported after President Trump got elected.
    3. It's ironic that President Trump will serve a full eight years as president.
    4. President Trump is doing a fantastic job.
    5. Keep America Great!
     
  3. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

  4. Maniac Craniac

    Maniac Craniac Moderator Staff Member

    I didn't vote for him regardless, but if I had...

    It would depend on whom he shot :naughty:
     
  5. me again

    me again Well-Known Member

    President Donald J. Trump is a national treasure and a historic figure

    If God Himself stood in the middle of New York City and announced that He had personally chosen Donald Trump to be president, the alt.left MSM would still reject them (plural). There's no point in trusting the alt.left owned and operated MSM. The will of the electoral representatives of the Republic of the United States doesn't matter to them. That's why the alt.left MSM plans and orchestrates scripted violence by paid-for alt.left provocateurs.

    President Trump is a political genius who stands up to the scripts of the alt.left owned and operated MSM. For example, the alt.left MSM created a scripted riot over the statutes of slave owning Confederate leaders in the south. Then when Trump asked the alt.left MSM if they were going to tear down the statutes of slave owning Presidents George Washington and Andrew Jackson, the alt.left said the equation was inappropriate. President Trump ruined the "scripted riots" of the alt.left with facts!

    1. The alt.left MSM declared that Americans hated Trump before the election.
    2. The alt.left MSM declared that Americans hated Trump during the election.
    3. The alt.left MSM declared that Americans hated Trump after the election.
    4. The alt.left MSM declared that President Trump will be impeached. Nadda.
    5. The alt.left MSM declared that President Trump has mental health issues. Nadda.
    6. The alt.left MSM describes violent alt.left protesters as peaceful protesters.
    7. The alt.left MSM is hemorrhaging financially!
    8. What will the alt.left MSM do when President Trump wins a second presidential term? LOL

    There is absolutely no proof that President Donald J. Trump colluded with Russians to steal [sic] the election from Hillary Rodham Clinton. Where are the alt.left facts? There are none!
     
  6. heirophant

    heirophant Well-Known Member

    I'm not sure what an 'approval rating' is supposed to be measuring.

    If I'm asked whether I approve of Trump, is that supposed to mean approve of some particular thing he said, some particular policy decision of his, his overall effectiveness in office, the effectiveness of the US government (much of which consists of partisan Democrats sworn to "Resist" and subvert him), or do I favor the direction that he enunciates for the US over the alternative hugely revisionist vision of US history and tradition promoted by the Democrats (and their celebrity, journalistic and professorial sycophants)?

    I would very likely have different answers, depending on what I thought the question meant.

    I voted for Trump, not because I liked his personality or his style (I don't, though I didn't like Hillary's either). I voted for him because I liked his policies, or at least the outlines of them that we were given. I still feel that way, and as the Democratic party has retreated into a prickly shell of totally hostile and angry intransigence, I'm prepared to double-down. I support Trump even more than I did on November 8. I don't see any viable alternative to him on the horizon.

    All that violent dressed-in-black 'Antifa' political thuggery (reminiscent of Hitler's brown-shirts), all the current '1984'-style attempts at re-writing US history and our national traditions, the constant attempts to silence free-speech (especially on university campuses), the incessant attempts to politicize (and racialize) everything (sports, entertainment, higher education, science...) leave me totally cold. They are threats to everything that I believe in and I perceive them as fundamentally totalitarian.

    The left is making no attempt at all to reach out to those of us in the white middle class (many of us the Democrats' traditional 'working class' base), making no attempts to convince us that the Democratic party might have something left to offer us besides "hurry up and die" so that a new post-60's coalition of racial minorities and rich self-satisfied, morally-superior and always-trendy coastal elites can take over.

    But, having said that...

    I don't necessarily approve of everything Trump says. I don't necessarily approve of every policy he or some faction among his supporters propose. I don't necessarily think that the current government is moving effectively to advance its own agenda. (I lay most of the blame for that on establishment 'never-Trumpers' who still infest the Republican Congressional caucus.) I don't love every speech Trump gives and every word he Tweets.

    In other words, approval ratings obscure a lot of complexity right under the surface and probably don't translate into voting intentions or into party allegiances very well.
     
  7. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    Are these the same pollsters who all but guaranteed a Hillary Clinton victory in November?
     
  8. heirophant

    heirophant Well-Known Member

    Are you any different?
     
  9. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    And that Brexit would fail? That's a fair question.
     
  10. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    If you show me a valid pol with different results I will certainly pay attention.
     
  11. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    There are two issues going on here. One is, "Do I believe the poll is an accurate reflection of the world." You can question that and it's fine. But if you're going to say that any poll that ever was wrong in predicting the outcome of an election will forever be invalid and totally lacking in credibility then I believe you're making a mistake in logic and your mistake is made simply because you don't want the polling results to be true. If Gallup was saying that Trumps approval rating was 60% then you wouldn't be bringing up the past. The other issue is with me again's own statement in post #2. Trump's approval rating was not 35% just after he got elected. It's simply a false statement and I suspect that he just made it up out of thin air. He's trying to say that his approval rating has not changed. That means he believes that the approval rating at present is, in fact 35% but that it's always been 35% so therefore it hasn't gone down. So you can say "I don't believe the polling data because of . . . whatever" or you can believe what it says, but you can't say "I believe these numbers but I don't believe those" simply because you don't like what they indicate.

    As for his statement #4, that Trump is doing a fantastic job, I'm really uncertain what he's referring to. As far as I can tell, he hasn't actually done anything. Not a single piece of major legislation passed and not even a bill being considered. He's back to banning trans people from the military. If he succeeds in that I think most people will say it's a bad thing. He plays a lot of golf, he tweets a lot but he hasn't actually accomplished anything. So, me again, what's so "fantastic?"
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 24, 2017
  12. heirophant

    heirophant Well-Known Member

    You mentioned some CNN Politics opinion piece that had Trump supposedly saying that he could shoot someone on the streets of New York and his support would remain solid. You made a snarky (but perhaps accurate) remark about how that applies to Me Again.

    So my question to you is: Could any particular news event cause you to abandon your current political allegiances?

    I'm doubtful whether any news event could budge you off of what you identify as your deeply held core principles.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 24, 2017
  13. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    First of all, it's not a case where he "supposedly" said it. It's on videotape, embedded in the article that is linked. Secondly, it wasn't a snarky comment. me again actually is one of those people. Finally, we're not talking about "deeply held core principles" we're talking about blind allegiance to a specific human being, Trump. me again doesn't talk about core principles, he only talks about Trump. Trump can do no wrong, regardless of what he does or doesn't actually do. You saw it yourself, "Trump is doing a fantastic job" At what? What has he done? I asked the question but, so far, no answer.
     
  14. me again

    me again Well-Known Member

    You are pointing out what the silent majority thinks. However, the alt.left owned MSM shouts louder and incites alt.left provocateurs to violence.

    That is correct: the DNC alt.left makes no attempt to woo or schmooze a potential political base of constituent voters. Instead, anyone who is not alt.left is demonized or physically attacked (literally) with violence by alt.left Antifa thugs (aka brown shirts). The alt.left may be the minority, but they are much more vocal -- because they are orchestrated and paid to be so -- Lenin style with alt.left violence and alt.left propaganda.

    The alt.left is going to fizzle out when the alt.left money machines runs out of funds to pay for it. It's just a matter of time.
     
  15. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    That was simple yes or no question.

    "The lady doth protest too much, methinks".
     
  16. me again

    me again Well-Known Member

    Doubting Thomas refused to believe in the resurrection of Jesus and yet he ended up becoming a vocal martyr for the Lord. Miracles do happen and there is hope for doubting Kizmet!
     
  17. heirophant

    heirophant Well-Known Member

    We aren't that silent any more (thank goodness). Trump's victory was our work.

    There are those who seem to want to believe that Trump's victory was due to countless Middle-American idiots blindly following Trump-the-man. The left wants to believe that Trump's election victory wasn't because of what Trump said, but rather because Trump said it. Hence all they feel they need to do is discredit Trump with their hatred, their lies and their threats of impeachment, and they are confident that when he's gone everything Trump stands for will blow away like dust.

    My point is that Trump did so well in the Republican primaries because he was the only candidate that said what countless voters wanted to hear. He beat Hillary in the general election because he said what voters wanted to hear. The thing that attracted voters wasn't Trump the man, with all of his obvious flaws. This isn't just a little personality-fueled blip in history's relentless march to the left.

    When Trump is gone, whenever that is (4 or 8 years probably unless he's assassinated, a very real possibility) the movement he represents will still be there, big as life. Other candidates are sure to follow in his footsteps and will try to reassemble the same powerful voting coalition.

    That makes me wonder about the future of American partisan politics. The Republicans seem to be currently splitting between street-level Republican voters on one hand, who elected Trump, and the self-styled "conservative" elite: the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Congressional leadership class, the Bush dynasty, Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan, the never-Trumper pundit class (like Bill Kristol or Carl Rove) and all the lobbyists and lawyers who insist that lowering taxes on the rich, shipping factory jobs to China, opening the borders and eliminating all immigration enforcement is what the country most wants and needs.

    If Democrats can rouse themselves from their self-imposed madness, they will recognize that Republican populism is very like the Democrats' traditional appeal to working-class voters against the bosses, with the latter identified with the Republicans. Today that's shifting as millions of former Democrats feel culturally alienated from their own party's elites who openly disdain them -- and hence they voted for Trump.

    The Democrats seem to be headed towards being something very similar to the establishment Republicans, the party of government workers, big-city journalists, Hollywood and sports celebrities, Silicon Valley moguls, and university professors, all linked by believing that they somehow know better than you do about running your own life and ever ready to morally condemn you. Turning the Democratic party into the party of the new bosses might not provide a big enough voting coalition to win many elections outside California and the NY-DC corridor, but they have historically broadened it through patronage, by buying the support of alienated minorities with endless preferences and programs. They also hope to use feminism to win a majority of female votes. (Didn't work for Hillary, most women I know seemed kind of repelled by her. I don't know why and I'm sure she doesn't either.)

    So we may be headed for a three party system. More likely the establishment Republicans will just blow away, since they don't seem to represent any big block of voters. I expect them to become Democrats, the old bosses joining the new ones out of common class-interest.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 24, 2017
  18. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    This is a good point and an interesting distinction, separating the man from the message. However, just as we got to hear about all the foolish Democrats who vote the straight party ticket regardless of the issues, I'm sure that you do not speak for everyone who voted for Trump. I'm sure there were some, easily hypnotized individuals who just loved the brashness and the bluster of the man, and voted for him because he has millions of dollars, and was an outsider etc. In any case, the test will be in the mid-term elections. All those politicians who are up for re-election will have to decide where to stand. Will they back Trump or not? And if they back Trump, will they win or not? That will be an approval poll that can not be ignored. If Republican politicians back Trump and then win big there will be no alternative but to admit that you are right. Until then, it continues to appear that Trump is losing popularity. It's possible that, as you say, many, many people are willing to tolerate his bad/nasty characteristics because he is the bearer of "the message." There are two additional things to consider about that particular point. The first is, does he really mean it or did he just say it in order to get elected? Let's face it, it wouldn't be the first time a candidate said whatever was necessary in order to get elected, even if he/she wasn't being sincere. The second thing is, can he translate "the message" into real change? An honest appraisal of his effectiveness to date indicates that he can't get the job done. I believe that this is a key point because if his ineffectiveness continues, if can not translate the message into passed legislation then I believe that those very people who voted for the message (and not the man) will begin to back away from him. The opinion polls suggest it's already happening. Today he took shots at Sen Corker, a leading Republican Senator.. He'll need Corker's vote in the future. Will Corker support him now or will one more piece of legislation die on the vine because Trump can't restrain his impulses to tweet every random thought that enters his mind? And in the meantime, quietly in the background, the Mueller investigation continues and if something, anything, comes out of it the two big questions will be "What did Trump know, and when did he know it?"
     
  19. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

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