The world could be reduced to irradiated cinders, and it’d still be better than if Hillary won. Somehow
Yes, I realize she didn’t win. My point, which you understood, is that this is a non-story. Regardless of who won this election, they’d have the lowest incoming approval rating for any president. I highly doubt this thread would have popped up if Hillary won.
I’m sure you or one of your comrades would have started one.
W was a more divisive figure than Hilary. And he lost the popular vote. And he only had a 25% disapproval rating. So, no, she wouldn’t have had the lowest approval rating in history. Trump is unique.
Well after this election, we know how credible polling is.
I was following 538 pretty closely during the election. They had Trump with a fairly good chance of winning. They also gave him a fairly good chance of losing the popular vote but winning the electoral vote, which is what actually happened. I’d say polling worked pretty well, it’s just that people had a lot of trouble believing the polls because they didn’t believe anyone would actually vote for Trump. But that’s not really a polling problem.
If it had, I’m highly confident you’d be here making the same “non-story” objection.
No, he wasn’t.
Regards,
Shodan
Yes he was.
So what? Regardless of what rating Hillary might have had, it’s still a story. This is the first time in history that an incoming president has had the approval of less than half the electorate. Since Hillary consistently had higher approval ratings than Trump, she very likely would have higher approval now - especially as she would certainly not have indulged in appointing such an extremely unqualified and divisive cabinet, nor engaged in Trump’s continued erratic and delusional behavior. Even if she had lower approval than Bush II, it would likely have been positive rather than negative like Trump.
What, you’re going to listen to what the MEDIA tells you about anything?
As reported by The Washington Post:
Is there any correlation between approval rating in week one of a Presidency and… anything else?
Call me crazy, but I think there may be a correlation between their approval rating and their popularity. Furthermore, I think there may be a correlation between their popularity and their ability to sway Congress. I also suspect, but cannot say for sure, that popularity may be important for politicians.
Even worse numbers:
I think there probably was, and still is, a tendency for people who like/support/at least voted for Trump to be reluctant to admit it publicly (which would include to a stranger doing a poll). Which is not very surprising with all the anti-Trump shaming that goes on in pop culture (it’s certainly very prevalent on this board). The “silent majority” effect is real.
Case in point: I have an uncle who I saw around the Christmas holiday, during which time he “came out” to our family as a Trump voter*. He has a liberal girlfriend, and the family is mostly (but not entirely) liberal. Apparently he hadn’t admitted to anyone that he had, in fact, voted Trump, until that gathering, and it was a big secret up until then.
*For the record, he’s a 60 year-old educated white male. But in his case, I don’t think it has a lot to do with Trump specifically or necessarily liking him as a person/leader - he just tends toward conservative values in general. Which is probably in his best self-interest as someone who makes pretty good money and also works for the military (he’s a military lawyer), so I can’t necessarily fault him for that. He’s above-average in intelligence and pretty rational and reasonable when it comes to discussing political issues.
Your first sentence is a redundancy.
As to your second, do you really think anyone in Congress cares about this poll now? In the months leading up to the midterms, sure, it matters. But there’s no election coming up now.
People are also just reporting the approval ratings they prefer, anyway. Trump is very low in the Qunnipiac poll, but much better in the Gallup and Rasmussen polls.
What makes you think that Trump’s approval ratings are going to go up from here? I think the only thing that will produce a big bump would be a major terrorist attack on US soil, as 9/11 did for Bush II.
This is what scares me. There’s a good chance that, either intentionally or accidentally, the administration is going to allow an attack to occur and end up enjoying a popularity boost no matter how poorly they handle it.
That’s pretty much my greatest fear in regards to this administration. I feel that the hardline stance re:immigration bans and vocal nationalist bluster is just adding fuel to the fire and is setting us up for another terrorist attack. I hope to God I’m wrong, and I’m not the conspiratorial type, but advertently or inadvertently, I can’t help but feel this is making our security worse, not better, and just fanning the flames. If a major attack happens on Trump’s clock, God help us all.
There’s a theory that an attack or war boosts the president’s popularity.
But I don’t think that’s really true. Wars aren’t universally popular. You can’t just gin up a war whenever you feel like it and have the public rally round the flag. The public first has to trust the leaders sending them to battle before the leaders can hoodwink them.
Same thing with a terrorist attack. If there isn’t the aforementioned trust, then the public blames the leaders for not preventing the attack. There have been plenty of attacks that brought down governments that failed to respond appropriately to the attacks.