On July 4, 2017 Trump’s approval rating on 538.com Rolling Disapproval — Approval Average, was 39.4% Approve, and 54.5% Disapprove, a negative -15.1% margin of Approval minus Disaproval.
Today, July 4, 2020, 4 years later, and Trump’s disapproval rating is 40.7% Approval and 56% Disapproval, a net minus 15.3% Disapproval.
He’s gained 1.3% Approval, but at the same time gained 1.5% Disapproval in that time. Opinion just hardened from where it was in July 2017, and it is exactly the same way today.
In 4 years, Trump’s disapproval over approval margin has changed by a total of -0.2%! It went from -15.1% to -15.3%.
Nothing, nothing whatever has moved that needle. Not, the endless scandals, not the constant turmoil and resignations, and tell-all books, not Impeachment and endless testimony of criminal misconduct by career military and civil service personnel of impeccable credentials.
They were all humiliated and ignored by arrogant Republicans determined not to listen.
55% or so disapprove, most of them strongly disapprove. And 40-42% love him like 1930’s Italy loved Mussolini.
And yet, there was a terrible brief moment in April 2020, when world history wobbled in the balance. Rather like the Battle of Britain in 1940, when the outcome of the battle was starkly the question of survival or utter defeat and conquest by Nazism. The matter came to a head in the Summer and Autumn of 1940. The Nazis were defeated, and history could ultimately move on with civilization intact.
There was a brief moment, fleeting and terrible, when Trump might have won, with incalculable consequences for human history. We might have taken a much darker and more sinister path.
Of course Trump still has to be defeated on election day, which means everybody has to vote. But, everybody is going to vote. Everybody is determined to vote. We’ve been ready to vote for 4 years. It’s not going to be a problem motivating people to vote.
Trump reached a career high water mark of his presidency in April 2020 when people had an initial “rally around the flag” moment.
His approval rating rose to 45.8% on March 29, 2020. If he continued to hold around 45%, he could possibly win Wisconsin, or Pennsylvania, and Florida and North Carolina. That happened in 2016. Despite Hillary holding around a 2.5% popular vote lead, it wasn’t enough in just a few conservative Midwestern states to make Trump president.
Show real presidential leadership and empathy like an actual human being and he might have convinced enough people to trust him for him to win re-election.
At that moment, however, he began accelerating his demented daily press conferences. Everyone was shocked to tune in and discover him talking all about himself, and praising himself and his administration, as though defending himself from criticism, and leveling attacks on perceived enemies and the media.
In short, Trump treated these Presidential press conferences with the whole world watching to see what the President of the United States is going to announce about this unprecedented public health crisis, as a campaign rally.
People were horrified. By mid May, his support had fallen to 43.8%, a drop of 2%. From there it continued it’s decline to its current level of 40.7%, just slightly north of the 39.4%.
it became immediately clear that Herr Trump did not have a plan to do anything about the COVID Crisis, except Tweet about it. At that point, a few percent of people in the squishy middle who might flip either way made up their minds.
They don’t love Trump, but they don’t hate Trump with the burning intensity of 10,000 White Hot Suns, like Liberals do. Trump had their hopeful attention for about 15 days there in April, when Brown Stuff really started to hit the fans, and they were hoping and waiting to see what Trump would do. Surely, the President was going to do something to deal with this crisis, and re-assure everybody that Things are going to be alright? Right?
Nope. Trump went into full denial mode, and made the protection of Confederate Monuments that even the state of Mississippi is abandoning.
Dudes. When Mississippi decides to remove the Confederate Battle Flag from their state flag, that’s not Fort Sumpter, that’s Appomattox Courthouse, folks. That’s a sign that the Neo-Confederates are losing badly their long slow cultural warfare resistance to change.
The massive repudiation of Trump this November is going to be epic. Trump has abandoned any hope of reclaiming the middle. He’s now openly embraced White Power advocates. They are his base. They will never abandon him. His re-tweeting a White Power video was no accident of course. His horrified staff rushed to get him to delete the video; afraid of the backlash that immediately followed, combined with a lot of negative media attention to Trump’s shocking behavior. Tweeting a video of a person shouting “White Power!” is not normal Presidential behavior. That might be the new normal under Trump, but it’s not normal and is going to get mentioned in the media.
Trump knew what he was doing. He was openly embracing his racist base, and going full-throated George Wallace circa 1968.
But, this is not 1968. It’s 2020 and two older generations like the “Greatest Generation” and the Silent Generation, the fathers of the Boomers are gone, and two new more liberal ones have replaced them, Millennials and Gen Z.
Trump is actually insane enough to make an embracing of the Confederate Flag and defending Confederate Monuments the campaign theme amid a raging, terrifying pandemic that is only getting worse and out of control, and an absolutely massive and integrated social justice movement that has suddenly arisen over Black Lives Matter protests.
Well, it’s definitely not working and it’s not going to work this time. Don’t stop working, but have some confidence that things are really looking up this November. We’re definitely going to clean out the Augean Stable and divert a river to wash away all the accumulated turds.
