June 5, 2019: President Trump Insists President Trump Is Wildly Popular

 

6/5/19: Donald R. Trump has never been good with numbers; but as he wraps up a visit to Britain and Ireland, he’s playing with math again. This time, he’s mad because not everyone loves him. 

 

“I would be up by 25 points.” 

He tweets: 

If the totally Corrupt Media was less corrupt, I would be up by 15 points in the polls based on our tremendous success with the economy, maybe Best Ever! If the Corrup Media was actually fair, I would be up by 25 points. Nevertheless, despite the Fake News, we’re doing great!

 

Let’s ignore the dangerous attacks on the free press and the bumbling spelling. Let’s pretend it’s not pathetic that eighty minutes later, the president repeats the same tweet, so he can fix “corrup.” 

Let’s focus on real numbers. On June 5, the president has an approval rating of less than 44% in an average of all polls. He believes he deserves a 69% approval rating, all due to the economy. 

Kellyanne Conway should probably tug on his sleeve and remind the Orange Buffoon, “Sir, a large part of the reason your approval rating has never been above 46% since you took office, is that you – and I say this with all due respect – are considered an asshole by a large chunk of the U.S. population.” 

“Sir, to be specific,” she should explain, “65 percent of Americans think you are not honest, 67 percent think you are a poor role model for children. And 62 percent of women don’t like you because you’re an unapologetic pussy-grabber.”

 

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TRUMP WRAPS UP A BUSY DAY, including a visit to a golf club he owns in Ireland, and a talk with the Irish premier, by catching tape of Fox News and then tweet-raging after Sean Hannity stirs him up. 

According to Hannity, Trump’s performance in Britain was brilliant and the British media are giving him “glowing reviews.” Here at home, Hannity fumes, “MSNBC ramps up hateful coverage.” 

It’s so mean! 

 

Trump: Less popular than a poisoner. 

So, let’s do a bit of fact-checking. Here’s how The Guardian described Trump’s second visit to Great Britain: 

He insulted London’s mayor, abused an American actor on Twitter at 1.20 am, turned Brexit into a threat to the National Health Service, described Meghan Markle as nasty, and behaved as if he was a kingmaker offering audiences to aspirants from the 51st state, and yet to Whitehall’s diplomats Donald Trump’s state visit was by no means the worst in living memory.

 

It may be that the bar had been set vertiginously low, or that Trump, as a repeat visitor, has lost some of his capacity for shock and awe. Somehow, it seemed tame and normalised in comparison with his previous disastrous visit a year ago [emphasis added].

 

Readers reactions are also less than glowing. “That the British state has rolled out the red carpet for Trump in this way is a total disgrace,” said one. “Trump is not leading the free world, the free world is ignoring him on so many levels, from global warming, to trade, to diplomatic policy,” another commented. A third referred to the U.S. president as a “vile creep.” 

Resignedly, one reader admits, “We may have to hold our noses when Trump visits, but he does represent the most powerful and important defensive alliance in the world.” It’s just too bad the president doesn’t agree that NATO is important.  

So, how did ordinary Brits feel about Trump. It turns out, he’s their seventh most popular foreign politician! Millions love Trump! As in enough millions to give Trump a 21% positive rating, vs. 67% negative. 

Only 66% of Brits have a negative opinion of Vladimir Putin, and he tried to poison people on British soil. 

 

POSTSCRIPT: Trump wraps up his second trip to Great Britain and heads home. Business Insider, an American news organization, interviews a dozen Brits in an effort to gather opinion. Save for one young man, who admitted he wasn’t aware Trump had visited, the reaction was universally negative. 

Catherine Philips, 60: “I think he’s appalling. I think he’s a sexist, I think he’s a misogynistic disgrace, really, that brings shame on the US.” 

Nicholas Peters, 22: “I don’t really like Donald Trump, to put it lightly. He doesn’t seem like a very nice person.” 

A young woman named Danielle Barry described the visiting president as someone who had shown “blatant disregard for common, civil, and human rights.” 

Thalia Renucci, 24, says she’s sorry her country’s leaders had to follow protocol and treat Trump with the same respect as any other president. “I really wish he wasn’t here,” she sighed. “I have a lot of friends who are American, a lot of them live here, and they are losing all trust in democracy.”