“CHARACTER IS DESTINY,” the Greek philosopher
Heraclitus once said. For Trump and his minions this is clearly the case. When
you cram the White House with bullies, wife-beaters and foul-mouthed louts,
people notice.
Trump finishes behind Buchanan in presidential ratings.
Consider results from a recent Quinnipiac poll: 61% of
Americans said they did not like Trump as a person.
Only 3 in 10 said they did.
Even worse, only 1 in 5 Americans (18%) believe the president has
been faithful to his third wife.
At this
point, Melania is probably part of the majority—who thinks he has not.
Is Trump
even fit to
be president? Four Americans in ten (41%) think he is. A sizable majority (57
percent) say he’s not. Men tend to give him a pass in that regard, splitting on
the question 49-49 %. Only 33 % of women believe the Emperor deserves his seat
in the Oval Office today. Again, a sizable majority (56 %) believes Trump acts
more like an autocrat than a normal president.
In other
words, the polls are not looking particularly good for the Emperor at this
point in his reign; but Trump is a half-full-or-more kind of guy, you could
say. This past month he took a look at all the polls—at least all the good ones
his sycophantic staff dared place on his desk. Trump saw the glass was more
than half full and never noticed it was filled with brackish swamp water.
He was
so thrilled by what he saw he had to tweet the news: “Great Pollster John
McLaughlin now has the GOP up in the Generic Congressional Ballot. Big gain
over last 4 weeks. I guess people are loving the big Tax Cuts given them by the
Republicans, the Cuts the Dems want to take away. We need more Republicans!”
I am a
fact-based kind of guy and I have puzzled over polls for many years. And I was
seeing a glass that appeared less than half full and less by a lot. I decided
to do some checking. Who was this pollster the Emperor loved? According to a
story from 2014, Republican candidates had been warned not to use McLaughlin’s
services because he had “a recent history of missing the mark by wide
margins” in races he tried to predict.
Trump
supporters, as we know, like to insist the polls were rigged in 2016 and
totally, totally off. Not true at all. If you know how to add 2 + 9 and get
10.89 you know they were off by only 1%. Clinton was expected to win the popular vote by
3.2%. She did, but not in key states, and only by 2.1%.
So let’s
look at the trends in regard to the generic ballot—where Trump sees a glass
that is looking so good. (You figure he can look in the mirror and believe his
hair looks good; so maybe we shouldn’t be surprised.) In this poll registered
voters (usually) are asked which party they prefer to control Congress in the
coming election. According to RealClearPolitics here are the results.
See if
you can spot a trend:
In fact, if you go all the
way back to January 2017 you won’t find a single poll, and there have been more
than 150, in which Republicans hold a lead. By comparison, the GOP had
an average lead of 2.4% in 2014 and won by 5.7%. They led in generic ballot
polling in 2010, too. Surveys showed them ahead by 9.4%. They won by 6.8%. The last time the Democrats were
up during a midterm election year was 2006. Polls gave them a 11.5% lead.
They won by 6.8.
Polling results aren’t much
better for the Emperor himself. Again, see if you can spot the trend:
We know that the trends can
change, but so long as the Emperor remains delusional in his approach to
governing—which is to say, probably for the next three years—we should not expect
to see much difference. Character is destiny, after all. Trump did get a bump
right after the tax cuts passed. But chaos in the White House, accusations of an
affair with a Playboy Bunny, tone-deaf dealings with survivors of the Stoneman
Douglas shooting, and a general bullying streak that percolates out of the Oval
Office won’t help him win any friends in days to come.
Right now, his best bet is
to subvert the Constitution and lock his political opponents up. That’s the tactic
Vladimir Putin prefers—and we know how much Trump admires Mr. Putin.
And there’s always “hope,” I
suppose, for Emperor Trump. This week the Communist Party was poised to alter the Chinese constitution and allow Xi Jinping to serve as president for
life if he so desires.
Trump’s reaction to the news
was telling and even Fox News was forced to address the topic. Naturally, they
gave the Emperor his usual pass. Trump actually seemed to like the idea of Xi
ruling for life and when he spoke at Mar-a-Lago his fat-cat friends apparently agreed.
Here’s how Fox told the tale:
“He’s now
president for life. President for life. And he’s great,” Trump said, according
to a recording obtained by CNN. “I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll give that a shot someday.”
Trump’s remarks
were reportedly met with laughter and applause during a luncheon for Republican
donors at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
Pause for a moment to think how Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly (this would have been before he got banned for sexually assaulting a bevy of beautiful co-workers) would have responded if President Obama had made similar comments.
“Obama loves communism!” they would have screamed.
“Obama said a dictator was ‘great.’ He wants to be a dictator himself!”
“Obama hates America! Obama wants to kick over your Chirstmas tree and confiscate all your guns!”
Nope. Not at Fox News, not during
the reign of Emperor Donald I. The Emperor can suck up to dictators of every kind.
It’s all going to be just fine,
Fox News assures its listeners every morning, afternoon and evening; but they
seem to forget. Character is destiny. If Heraclitus is correct, the Emperor is
surely screwed.
*
FOR A DAILY LOOK AT THE SECOND YEAR OF THE REIGN OF EMPEROR DONALD THE FIRST, GO TO: "EMPEROR TRUMP, YEAR II: CHAOS AND INCOMPETENCE CONTINUE."
No comments:
Post a Comment