Trump fuelled by rabid critics
AMONG TRUMP’S GREATEST ASSETS IS HE IS BLESSED WITH A MULTITUDE OF UNPLEASANT AND UNHINGED ENEMIES WHO SEEM DETERMINED TO HAVE HIM RE-ELECTED.
THE Donald Trump administration is fulfilling its agenda in the US as its opponents, including most of the media, respond shrilly.
Much of the media, including here in Australia, remain preoccupied with the superficial, such as Trump’s recent tweet mocking NBA star LeBron James, while the Republican base is focused on substantive change.
In what is an astonishing feat, given the ferocity of the press, Trump’s approval rating among Republicans soared to 88 per cent, according to the WSJ/NBC poll taken from July 15-18, making it the highest approval achieved by any president within his own party since such polling began 70 years ago – with the exception of George W. Bush post-9/11.
At the same point in their presidencies, Jimmy Carter had an approval rating of 52 per cent, Bill Clinton 67 per cent and Barack Obama 81 per cent among Democrats while Ronald Reagan was at 79 per cent among Republicans.
Media and political pundits afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome have cried wolf too many times.
Trust in the media is at historic lows in the US after much of the Fourth Estate lost any semblance of rationality and impartiality in coverthe ing Trump through the election campaign and since his inauguration.
The lines between opinion and news have been entirely blurred.
The negative coverage would’ve destroyed most other politicians but Trump has a Teflon quality to criticism, thanks largely to his enemies overplaying their hands. Among Trump’s greatest assets is he is blessed with a multitude of unpleasant and unhinged enemies who seem determined to have him re-elected.
“Fake news” may be a term that was coined by the Hillary Clinton camp but it has become a catchcry for conservatives to describe the falsehoods, half-truths and omissions of “news” reporting that is boldly biased.
The booming economy doesn’t get the coverage afforded Trump’s dalliances with strippers and playmates or Russian conspiracy theory but it is what matters most to the heartland.
Trump’s overall approval rating is somewhere between 45 and 50 per cent, depending on the poll, but his support among Republicans has remained sky high, while his approval rating among Democrats has been recorded as low as 7 per cent in a recent Pew Research Centre survey.
But despite his low ranking with Democrats, Trump’s overall popularity is superior to many other world leaders who enjoy a far easier run with the media.
Emmanuel Macron hit a new low of 36.3 per cent in France last week, Theresa May also plummeted to a new low in late July with only 30 per cent of Brits satisfied with her performance, while support for Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats’ alliance fell to a new low in the latest polling released on the weekend.
However, the German Chancellor’s personal approval rating is at a relatively healthy 46 per cent.
Trump hasn’t made the mistake of other centre-Right leaders around the world who abandon their base to try to appeal to people who are never going to vote for them.
Tax cuts have boosted employment and economic activity, with the GDP rising by an annualised rate of 4.1 per cent in the second quarter – a figure many economists deemed unachievable a year ago.
US workers have seen their wages rise by the biggest margin in a decade, according to the Labour Department’s employment-cost index, thanks largely to a combination of low unemployment and strong consumer confidence.
In June, the number of job ads exceeded the number of job seekers for the first time since such data was kept. Unemployment has fallen to 3.9 per cent with an average of 215,000 jobs created each month in 2018.
Predictions of doom have been regurgitated from the moment Trump triumphed over Clinton but the reality has made fools of the doomsayers, including once-renowned economists such as Paul Krugman who, writing for The New York Times on the day after the election, predicted the share market would “never recover” from a Trump presidency.
Trump’s enthusiasm for a fight – whether it’s the culture wars or securing better deals from trading partners is enormously popular to his base.
They elected a fighter and thus far, he is delivering.