The honeymoon is already over
Shocking poll numbers tell of a uniquely difficult path for America’s new commander-in-chief. And that’s even before the scandals start
It’s the beginning of the end of Donald Trump’s presidency. It isn’t wishful thinking to begin the countdown to Trump’s self-destruction on his inauguration day itself. It’s merely a statement of the facts of presidential life: This is no longer a game played out on TV and Twitter.
Everything changed when The Apprentice star took the oath of office on that stage outside the Capitol in Washington on Friday. Legally, politically and diplomatically, Trump’s world is utterly transformed. What passed before as media outrage now has a measurable impact on his presidential polls and by extension his presidential power.
What passed before as a sycophantic discussion with his own attorney now opens the door to endless litigation and the clear and present danger of impeachment. What passed before as a curious cozying up to Russian President Vladimir Putin is now transformed into a multi-agency investigation into illegal foreign payments to undermine the election.
We should not confuse populism with popularity. Trump entered the Oval Office as the weakest new Commander-in-Chief of the United States in living memory. Having lost the popular vote by almost three million, he has no political mandate to speak of. And his disastrous poll numbers are hard to overstate. This is the high-water mark of every president’s approval ratings — before they do the tough stuff of governing and encounter one of the many fast-moving crises that pass through the West Wing.
At the height of his popularity, Trump is polling as badly as former US president George W. Bush did at the end of his doomed presidency, after the catastrophic collapse of the economy and the bloody disaster of the Iraq war. A bumper crop of pre-inauguration polls told the story of how deeply unpopular the 45th president of America is. His personal popularity is as low as 32 per cent, compared to 61 per cent favourability for former president Barack Obama.
Approval of his transition showed Trump trailing Obama by an even greater margin: Just 40 per cent like the way Trump had performed since November, compared to 84 per cent for Obama’s transition eight years ago. Even Bush, elected after the extraordinary recount and legal coup in 2000, earned a 61 per cent rating for his transition.
These aren’t trivial numbers. They are the white blood cells of the circulatory system that flows through Washington. Good poll numbers can inoculate a president when Congress opposes him. Bad numbers reveal a president vulnerable to outside attacks and embolden his many rivals both inside and outside his own party. Those numbers are about to get a lot worse for the new president of the US.
In his first year in office, Obama lost more than 15 points on his job approval. If Trump follows the same track, he will be polling in the mid-20s by this time next year. To put that into context, former president Richard Nixon’s job approval on the day he quit the Oval Office was 24 per cent. And no Mr President, these aren’t rigged polls. The polls just reflect what people think of you, and they all rate you poorly both on a personal and professional basis. Here’s what’s rigged: An election you can win after losing the popular vote by more than two points, as the polls correctly forecast. What could drive Trump’s poll numbers so low? Unlike Obama, who inherited the worst economy in two generations, the new president cannot blame external forces.
The greatest threat, both to his presidency and the republic, comes from Trump himself. Somewhere near the top of the list is potential profiteering from the presidency through his continued ownership of the Trump Organisation. It seems Trump was in breach of the government lease on his new Washington hotel as soon as he was sworn into office. His efforts to hold onto the lease — which specifically prohibits government officials from holding it — will reveal his true priorities in office.
Foxes guarding henhouses
According to his personal attorney, Trump has drawn an ethical line by appointing his own ethics officer inside his own company. This is a quaint arrangement favoured by foxes guarding henhouses. The ethics of the Trump Organisation are irrelevant; the ethics of the presidency, however, are governed by article one of the constitution, which prohibits gifts of any kind from foreign powers.
Sadly, the US Constitution doesn’t distinguish between new and existing deals when it strictly prohibits the president from drawing any benefits from foreign powers. It just says they are all unconstitutional. What kind of deals might breach the now famous emoluments clause?
As ProPublica has detailed, there’s the Indian deal in Mumbai that involves the vicepresident of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party party, who is also an elected official. There’s a deal in Bali, Indonesia, with an Indonesian politician, who has partnered with state-owned companies from China and South Korea. And there’s a deal in Manila with a man recently named as an economic envoy to the US by the President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines.
You don’t have to be a constitutional law professor to appreciate the legal and political jeopardy for Trump.
Finally there’s the noose that’s tightening around Trump’s alleged Russian relationships. You know, the ones the new president said “absolutely don’t exist and never have, not ever, oh no”. The FBI and five other agencies are now investigating whether Russia covertly transferred cash to pay email hackers in the US as part of a broader Kremlin plot to influence the presidential campaign in Trump’s favour.
We also know that counter-intelligence officials are investigating possible contacts and ties between Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and Russian officials. Almost every scandal gets compared to Watergate, but very few genuinely deserve to be mentioned the same breath. Of course, Watergate wasn’t potentially financed by Moscow, even if it did involve undermining a presidential election. The last covert plot between a president’s inner circle and an enemy state was former president Ronald Reagan’s illegal gun-running operation to Iran. Perhaps that’s what Trump means by stealing Reagan’s slogan about making America great again. Now that he’s the 45th President of the US, the rules of this game have officially changed. Trump cannot trash tweet his way out his problems anymore. The constitution does not provide for that particular escape pod from Air Force One.
The TV star is now the desperately flawed lead in a tragicomedy, the author of his own misfortunes.
Richard Wolffe is a Guardian US columnist, as well as chief digital and marketing officer at Global Citizen, a non-profit organisation dedicated to ending extreme poverty.