Trump is now getting the best favorable ratings of his short political career. (see here & here) What do you think is causing it?
Some ideas (in my own personal opinions order of likelihood):
post-election victory bounce (“America loves a winner” - Patton)
normalization (with a nod to ThelmaLou for fighting the good fight)
Cabinet picks
Carrier plant save
Taiwan phone call
Air Force 1 tweet
You forgot Stockholm syndrome
The “honeymoon” period. Within months he’ll be down to 20-30%.
That’s a bold prediction. We should check back in early March to see whether it came true or not.
Obviously the same people that voted in those other polls before the election didn’t voice their opinion yet.
Taiwan, some cabinet picks. The Carrier thing is too recent for it to have affected any polls (I would guess).
People are now beginning to see the real Trump, thoughtful, considerate and wise. The Great Conciliator.
Future generations may consider him one of the greatest presidents, the man who healed a nation.
Or something.
My guesses as to why this is true have very little to do with policy.
People like a winner, people like to jump on the band wagon, people think that if he got elected he can’t be as bad as others said he was. People who may have been embarrassed about their support for him coming out in favor now that he won.
The realization that Trump is too stupid and lazy to follow through with most of his campaign promises, and that most of the presidency will be business as usual. Goldman Sachs exec as Treasury secretary? At least we know what we’re getting. Trump could have filled his swamp with much worse things, or at least much bigger unknowns.
Also, regression to the mean after a period of uncertainty, and before any real actions.
The soft bigotry of low expectations:
See, Trump isn’t that bad…
Bush had Goldman Sachs appointees, Obama had Goldman Sachs appointees, Hillary would have had Goldman Sachs appointees ( they had already paid their dues ) Trump has an Goldman Sachs appointee.
Isn’t it about time the position of Goldman Sachs representative be made a permanent cabinet office ?
Doubt it.
That sounds like a failure of imagination.
As I said: we know what we’re getting. It’s not so good, but it’s not so bad, either.
As far as monetary policy stuff goes, the “moral equivalent” of a climate change denialist or a young-earth creationist would be a gold standard supporter. I’d certainly take a Wall Street exec over that.
“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” - George Carlin.
This.
And this.
When you don’t know what to expect and wouldn’t be surprised to see the new president-elect running naked through the streets of Manhattan with a bevy of chorus girls the day after the election, the fact that he’s actually appointing people to Cabinet positions is sure to impress. The fact that he’s appointing complete imbeciles is a fact that won’t dawn on his acolytes for quite some time, and probably never, because he’ll blame the implosion of government on Obama or China or something.
The political equivalent of the Central Limit Theorem, or “Thank the gods that the election is finally over regardless of who won,” with a dollop of, “At least we aren’t going to have to hear about how it is all Clinton’s fault, or manufactured scandals about what Bill Clinton is doing in the Lincoln Bedroom with female staffers.”
However, I would caution against accepting this presidency as reverting to “business as normal”. Setting aside that it is apparent that Trump is going to take the opportunity to put his tiny hands on as much wealth as he can acquire, doing damage to both the reputation of the office and the nation in the process until he gives up or is so blatant that Congress has to impeach him, there is now a situation with both houses of Congress being controlled by the GOP with a hard-line conservative vice president who appears to be setting the real agenda, a bevy of hard-right (some alt-right) people in Cabinet-level positions, and the opportunity to place several justices on the Supreme Court (almost certainly two, possibly as many as four). This is not normal; the ability of the radical conservative wing of the Republican party to get everything they’ve been gnashing about for the last twenty-odd years is now right in front of them with no checks or balances other than the specter of reelection, and they’re going to feast upon it like maggots on rotting meat.
Even positing a radical overturning of Congress in the 2018 election (which isn’t going to happen; the realistic best case scenerio is to prevent giving a GOP majority in the Senate and take back maybe a dozen seats in the House of Representatives) isn’t going to reverse the legislative, judicial, and executive changes that will likely occur over the next two years. If this had been a victory balanced by a moderate GOP majority and a rational chief executive it would be a reasonable prognostication to suggest that the change wouldn’t be too radical, but what we have now is essentially unprecidented in modern legislative history, topped with a President(Elect) who is not even remotely well-versed in politics or the workings of government and is already doing his level best to avoid taking actual responsibility for his actions.
And bear in mind that by winning despite being an unrepentant, misogynistic, media-trolling asshole, Trump has educated this generation of politicians that it is possible to run a negative campaign and do unspeakable things, and yet have enough voters angry, scared, or disaffected enough to still win the election. This is a new calculus to national politics–that one can campaign on bluster and anger without having a single coherent policy, and deliberately ignore or disdain proveable facts–that will inform future campaigns. FWIW, I think that Trump was kind of unique in the degree to which he could pull this off, and such an approach would have backfired on someone who isn’t already an inflated media personality, but it doesn’t mean that going forward politicians aren’t going to more openly adopt negative and even hateful claims on one another in lieu of debating policy or prior performance. And that doesn’t bode well even in a hopefully Trump-less future.
Stranger
Idiocracy was a documentary.
post-election victory bounce (“America loves a winner” - Patton)
Maybe a touch, more like relief that the campaign is over.
normalization (with a nod to ThelmaLou for fighting the good fight) Can’t help you there unless normalization is better defined.
Cabinet picks
Seriously? He hasn’t picked a decent one yet. It’s sad when McConnell’s wife is the best of the lot.
*Carrier plant save *
What a joke. Now companies that plan to move jobs oversees will be threatened with massive tax breaks. Even the workers there realize this is a PR stunt with no importance.
Taiwan phone call
Another joke. The fucker lied about it. “They called me!” Sure, they did. The Taiwanese know better. If destabilizing relationships with a major world power boosts your popularity, then Americans are even dumber than we thought November 9.
Air Force 1 tweet
Penny ante horseshit. AF1 is an insignificant part of the budget. He’ll go back on this one anyway. Maybe if they paint “No Muzlimz allowed!” on the fuselage he’ll go along with it.
He’s got a brief honeymoon, which he doesn’t deserve and won’t last until February.
Such certainty. If anything, I would have thought this election would teach you a little humility when it comes to trying to predict future events.
"President-elect Donald Trump’s favorability is reaching new heights as he rounds out his Cabinet and prepares to take office Jan 20.
Still, more Americans have an unfavorable view of Trump than have a favorable one — but the 44 percent favorable to 50 percent unfavorable numbers out Monday via an Economist/YouGov Poll mark the pinnacle of Trump’s popularity so far…"
From the first citation. Emphasis mine. “New heights” and “pinnacle” would almost seem to be an ironic bit of snark, if it were not for the source. The Blaze is Glen Beck, yes? Would you like us to try to pretend that we don’t think Glen Beck is batshit?