So a few months in, is there any consensus as to how folk who voted for Trump feel about the job he’s doing?
I realize they are not a single, cohesive bloc. And I imagine many of them will always be glad they voted for someone other than Hillary.
I - and many liberals/Dems - disfavor the extent that he has acted as a superficial, ignorant, irrational blowhard with no clear convictions. But, that is pretty much how he ran, so I doubt such performance is likely to dissuade many of his supporters.
The data I’m awaiting is whether employment numbers move significantly in any sustained way.
He could kiss Kim Jong Un on the lips and it wouldn’t bother his fans. He could donate his entire fortune to putting abortion clinics in every city and Democrats still would despise him. The only thing that will change in 2020 is the enthusiasm gap, which will be reversed in 2020.
Some are happy because he’s doing things they like (e.g. the “Muslim ban”).
Some are happy because they believe he’s doing all the things he says he’s doing even though there’s no evidence of him doing them (e.g. “Trump has created more jobs than Obama did in his entire eight years”).
Some are happy because he really annoys non-Trump voters.
Some are not happy because he’s not doing things he promised to do that were important to them (e.g. repealing ACA).
Some are not happy because they have realized that his grandstanding during the campaign wasn’t four-dimensional chess designed to flummox liberals and that he really is that pompous, shallow and incompetent.
Some are not happy because he’s gone a bit war-happy.
The NPR program inadvisable asked this question, and a number of conservatives called it. Uniformly their answer was that they were not all that happy with what he was doing wouldn’t admit to any buyers remorse saying that it was early yet and they would wait an see. Asked why they voted for him they all said it was because he wasn’t Hillary, without giving a specific reasons that Hillary was bad and Trump was better.
Admittedly this is a selected subset of conservatives who willingly listen to NPR, but given the near uniformity of their responses, I expect it is a widely held belief. No one likes to admit they made a major mistake, even to themselves, so I imagine that over the next 4 years there is going to be a lot of flimsy self justification going on among Conservatives as to why they stand by their choice.
My “in ther 70s” parents are your typical Fox News following conservatives who voted for Trump.
I’ve noticed that while many issues and scandals have plagued Trump daily that when I switch to Fox to see their reaction they are just simply not talking about it and wagging the dog someplace else.
Since all my parents watch is Fox they are oblivious to the shitstorm he’s been creating and think everything is moving along just fine.
This is an important point, with the usual media bubbles, Trump voters are likely not being given messages that call his actions into question.
Whereas in other areas of media bubbles, his constant golfing weekends at Mar-A-Lago are grounds for impeachment, his continued family business dealings are grounds for a firing squad, he’s a Russian plant, and the FBI is just days away from frog-marching the whole lot out the door. So, it kinda depends on who one listens to.
It’s also a selected subset of those that NPR wanted to put on the air.
Back during the Obama Presidency, NPR went out to find why people did, or did not, support Obama. Finally they found someone who said something like ‘I just can’t vote for someone black’, and put that on the air.
“Tell me what I want to hear” is why the polls were wrong before the election.
Ah! So, NPR had to labor mightily to find the rare pro-Trump racist, did they? Searched high and low, beating the bushes, trying to find at least one? Was it difficult, you think? All they could find were enlightened and unbiased Trump voters, innocent of even the hint of racism, but they kept at it till they found one?
Seriously? Pull of the other leg, its got bells. Pull the middle one, I’ll give you a nickel.
I guess I just woulda thought that some significant number of voters would have really agreed with him when he said a golfing president was not a good thing - and been disappointed at his golfing even more. And I wonder who would not be troubled by appearances of him and his family profiting from the office. And then I thought some of his more direct flipflops would bother folk for whom those were voting issues.
But I guess I see, that if all you watch is Fox, you won’t be aware of the possible alternative interpretations.
I’m sorta thinking that there is little that could change the minds of his supporters. As such, changing the balance of power will depend largely on the Dems getting out the vote - something they don’t generally excel at.
Ah, Liberals bashing the President, and assuming that everyone else must agree with them. Do y’all ever learn?
The President has done some pretty dumb things so far as President, but one has to admit, most of them weren’t really Presidential things. When he tweets something stupid, that’s not a Presidential thing, so it really doesn’t matter. When he issues an executive order that gets enjoined by the courts because he didn’t bother to get it properly vetted by people who could have told him it wouldn’t work, that’s a Presidential thing.
Presidential things he’s gotten wrong:
His executive order on the “travel ban” was poorly executed. He had to try a second time. Notice that the second order is on hold, too, but no one is talking about that because it’s not really that obnoxious an order, and everyone is in wait-and-see mode.
He failed to shepherd a repeal-and-replace bill through regarding the ACA. In his defense, I’m not sure any President would have managed it; the trouble with the effort is that the Republican Party still has a very strong split between fiscal hardliners and social moderates, and that’s going to stop any effort at legislating so long as the party hierarchy refuses to negotiate with Democrats to break the back-bench opposition.
All the rest of the stuff that people complain about (Mar-a-Lago, golfing, tweets, where is my aircraft carrier today?, etc.) is really not that important, and certainly isn’t going to affect his enthusiasts.
Things he’s done “right” (at least by the viewpoint of his supporters):
He got a conservative justice appointed to the Supreme Court.
He’s already gotten tough on immigration, and promises to get even more tough.
He bombed Syria for crossing the “red line.” Gotta hand it to him, even if it did little damage.
There are other examples of meat for the core supporters one could cite.
Why anyone who has a liberal take on things would believe this is going to sway those who voted for him to think they were wrong, I’m not sure…
I think this is one of the dividing lines for people. Lots of people think that once you are President, every thing you do is a Presidential thing. So, the criticism comes from that belief.
Clearly that is not the belief of many people - as you illustrate.
Yeah, I don’t think Trump was elected because of any of his “positions” on issues. He was elected because he’s a mean and stupid asshole. He still is, so he’s still got the support of those that wanted that. Just don’t call them “deplorable,” it hurts their feelings.
Uh, yeah…there are a ‘few’ more presidential fuckups he’s made than that.
Let’s start with ‘presidential’ tweets…like accusing Obama and Susan Rice of felonies on no evidence whatsoever…or directing the FBI to watch Fox News for evidence…or attacking the judicial system and judges for having the audacity to decide against him? Or losing or firing numerous appointees for various reasons, usually having to do with unsuitability? How about flippity-flopping more than the Easter Bunny on many of those policies that got him elected in the first place? Bald-faced and obviously lying (forcing his mouthpieces into tizzies trying to spin them) about nearly everything he comments on? Nepotism, anyone?
If you can’t find more than you came up with, you either haven’t been watching or you’ve been in the Faux News bubble.
On an ‘alternative’ note, I notice the local Trump voters are strangely silent…