Glen Beck has been surprisingly sane lately, from what I’ve seen of him. Like I actually find myself agreeing with him from time to time. I’m pretty sure the alt-right hates his guts (and he them).
There’s a new poll from Bloomberg out:
and I suspect being named Time’s Person of the Year will help him more. FWIW, I don’t see how they could have reasonably picked anyone else.
What has he done to piss off the people that approved of him before, exactly? I can’t think of anything, he’s being tough on China and appointing some non-traditional people to his cabinet while tweeting angrily, which is all stuff they would expect. It doesn’t matter that he’s pissing off people who already disapprove of him, that’s not going to increase his disapproval rating since they’re already a ‘disapprove’. For the people that didn’t already approve of him and aren’t going to disapprove of him no matter what, he hasn’t really done anything substantive, has done some posturing (like he Taiwan call and Air Force One bluster) and is pissing off a ton of very shrill people who keep him in the news.
It’s not like he’s suddenly getting 90% approval ratings, or even over 50%, he’s just going up to 44% approval.
Hey, guess who was* Time*'s Man of the Year in 1938.
He’s still making promises and blowin’ the horn-no one expects the payoff until he takes office in January…and that’s when this pyramid scheme comes crashing down and people find out he doesn’t give a flying fuck about anyone but himself.
Almost as if he has been a sort of reverse Manchurian Candidate. It is a true sign that we’ve transitioned into a J.J. Abrams-produced bizarro universe when Glenn Beck, who was once deemed to kooky to remain on the Fox News channel, is the voice of reasoned criticism in the room, even if it is a room full of neoconservative stalwarts. This is just so, so wrong.
Stranger
Their selection critiera is “the individual or group of individuals who have had the biggest effect on the year’s news”. It doesn’t mean Time thinks he’s a swell guy and we should all adore him.
Trump has had great luck in his adversaries. The nutjobs who want to do recounts, burn flags, and march in the streets are making him look sane and statesmanlike.
I have to agree here. For better or worse, who has the biggest impact is the criteria. On more than one occasion, the honoree has been a scoundrel.
Hey, guess who was Time’s Person of the Year in 2008 and 2012?
Such a bounce is surely common, though perhaps every other winning candidate in history was better thought of than Trump on election day, so he had more upside than almost anyone else.
A near plurality voted for him. Not nearly all of them thought of him favorably per polls, but easy to see how one’s attitude would soften towards somebody you actually voted for if they, surprisingly, win.
Then a lot of people voted against him but aren’t that into politics. They hope he turns out OK because he’ll be President, and that hope is reflected in saying now he might be OK after all. That’s probably most of the shift.
Then a lot of people are into politics and voted against him strongly. They really don’t like him, and many are still shocked and butt hurt that Hillary Clinton got beaten by Donald Freaking Trump. So of course they still say he’s a bum.
I doubt cabinet picks, Carrier etc is a big part of it. It has probably helped somewhat among first two groups. Hard to see who previously thought well of Trump but now doesn’t because of those things, easy to see people on either side whose minds haven’t been changed by those things.
Surely, at least some of the disapproval prior to the election came from Republicans who believed that Trump’s behavior was going to lose an election that would otherwise have been winnable; now that this is demonstrably no longer true, these people have no reason to disapprove of him any more. (Until he starts putting Republican congressional seats at risk in the midterm, that is.)
TIME also describes it as the individual or group “that influenced the world, for better or worse” and, alternately, that was “deemed to have most influenced the year’s news, for better or worse.”
A newsmaker is not the same as a positive contributor: in addition to Hitler in 1938, Person of the Year selections have included Stalin (twice – in 1939 and 1942), Khruschev (1957), the Ayatollah Khomeini (1979), the inimitable Newt Gingrich (1995), and Vladimir Putin (2007).
The only major newsmaker notably missing is bin Laden. Rudy Guliani made the cover that fateful year.
So I don’t know what basis you have for saying “being named Time’s Person of the Year will help him more”. Being declared a yuuuge newsmaker is not a compliment, and it’s a category populated as much by villains as by heroes. If and when Trump’s administration goes down in flames or he is impeached, I imagine he’ll make Person of the Year a second time.
Well, he did lambaste Time’s choice of Angela Merkel for their 2015 selection as “insane” and “the person who is ruining Germany”, so I suppose this could just be viewed as paying the ‘compliment’ back at him.
No, they aren’t, and indeed, nothing could make Trump’s behavior appear in any way that could be described as “statesman-like”. In fact, his responses to protesters and recounts have made him look even more like a “man-baby”, and his completely unsubstantiated insistence that massive widespread voter fraud was the reason that he lost the popular vote shows just how divorced from reality he is. He doesn’t just surround himself with extreme right wing conspiracy theorists; he quite literally is one.
Stranger
It’s a hit piece that trashes Trump and lauds Clinton.
But from a MSM source what else might one expect?
And like most “hit pieces” that the right doesn’t like, they’re hard pressed to find a specific part to factually refute.
That’s really, really getting old. Apparently the Trump-hating “MSM” now also includes every major newspaper in the United States, including conservative papers that have consistently supported only Republican candidates going as far back as 1873, but could not on this occasion bring themselves to support Trump.
One might expect that the MSM would have learned something. One would be disappointed, though.
The MSM spent the whole campaign doing this kind of thing, and it didn’t work. Doing more of it now isn’t going to change anything - ordinary people have tuned them out. The kvetching has been discounted ahead of time - of course they are going get red in the face screaming at everyone he picks for his cabinet, or fall all over themselves denying that the Carrier plant save counts for anything, etc., etc.
Presidents-elect usually get this kind of a bounce - except among a press that is still whimpering over being ignored. “Don’t cry until you’re hurt” is a sound adage, but not one the media likes to hear.
Regards,
Shodan
Paying a company to move jobs to Mexico which is about the polar opposite of his promise to fine them instead.
QFT…every word!