USA TODAY International Edition
Trump voters say tweets are trouble
President’s behavior, social media habits distract from goals
This isn’t quite what they expected. Voters who helped put candidate Donald Trump in the White House did so because he promised to shake up a political system they didn’t think was working for them. Now, almost exactly one year after his election, they worry his disruptive persona and provocative rhetoric may be undermining his ability to make the government work for them.
They share no broad consensus about what his biggest achievement has been to date — he has yet to sign a major piece of legislation — and in what could create complications for the administration, they don’t agree what his top priority should be now.
What most do agree on, however, is what’s gone wrong: all those tweets.
“I do like the way he’s shaken things up in numerous ways, but I definitely would like him to be more presidential,” says Margie Chandler, a business manager from Old Monroe, Mo. “He doesn’t know when to stop talking.”
“Some of his tweets are, like, what the hell does this have to do with running the country?” says Francis Smazal, a registered nurse from Marshfield, Wis.
Chandler and Smazal are members of the USA TODAY Trump Voter Panel, a sort of free-floating focus group of 25 Trump voters from across the country who have been weighing in every other month or so. Drawn from respondents to the final USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll of 2016, their conversation in 2017 by email and phone takes the political temperature among core voters who contributed to last year’s upset victory.
From our Trump voter panel
As the one-year anniversary of his election approaches Wednesday, Trump still scores a perfect approval rating among these voters, but with some caveats. Not one person in the group says he or she would change their vote in 2016. They tend to dismiss the escalating investigation into Russian meddling in last year’s election, and the possibility that Trump associates colluded with Moscow, as just politics. But they also express less confidence than before about whether Trump can deliver and more concern about his behavior.
In the first months of Trump’s presidency, as many as 13 of these voters predicted history would judge Trump to be a “great” president. That number now has dropped to seven.
“He isn’t drowning, but he isn’t on land, either,” says Duane Gray, a truck driver from Boise. “Presidentially, I kind of like where he’s going. Personally, he needs to put that phone down and learn to shut his mouth when he needs to. His mouth is his own worst enemy.”
‘A dog-and-pony show’
Gray is one of a few on the panel who believe that the Russia investigations hold peril for the president.
“If these Russian contacts or whatever come through as collusion, then his ass is grass,” he says. He predicts there could be new and damaging revelations in the wake of the first criminal indictments announced last week by special counsel Robert Mueller, “when people start facing prison time.”
The more common assessment among this group, though, is that the Russia investigations are nothing more than what Monty Chandler, a disabled veteran from Church Point, La., dismisses as “a dog-and-pony show.”
“It’s dirty politics,” says Patricia Shomion of Mount Gilead, Ohio. “I find it interesting that these things should be prosecutable, but all the stuff that Hillary (Clinton) has done was just, they’re forgiven.”
A development they do appreciate: Nearly all agree that the nation’s economy is doing better, although only half say that upturn has been reflected in their family’s finances.
But they are almost evenly split over if the country’s security has improved or stayed the same, and the terror attack in New York City last week that killed eight people rattled some.
“We’re more secure,” Shomion declares. “We have a new commander.”
But Jason Felts, a paramedic from Galax, Va., is alarmed by Trump’s verbal confrontations with North Korea’s unpredictable leader, Kim Jong Un. “He should be a little more diplomatic.”
“Even if he takes the right actions,” Anne-Marie Smith, a computer analyst from Monsey, N.Y., says of Trump, “his maturity level could put us in a confrontation with North Korea.”
A striking two-thirds of his supporters express at least some concern about the president’s tendency to punch and counterpunch, especially on Twitter. In response to an open-ended question to name the “worst thing” Trump has done, more than half cite aspects of his personal behavior.
“He creates too many distractions, which weakens any momentum in policy and legislation,” says Ken Cornacchione, a financial consultant from Venice, Fla.
In contrast, Michael Colombo, who works in sales in Old Bridge, N.J., likes Trump’s style. “Sometimes he shoots from the hip; sometimes he talks before he thinks it all the way out,” he says. “But you know what? That’s the trait of an honest man.”
Credit and blame
Answers were scattered in response to an open-ended question about the “best thing” the president has done.
Appointing Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, says Colombo. “Calling out” other countries in the United Nations, says Cheyne Henry, a business manager from Red Lion, Pa. Supporting the military, says Keely Vazquez, a small-business owner from St. Paul. Easing environmental regulations, says John Karr, a retiree from Federal Way, Wash.
As a group, these core supporters are more likely to blame the administration’s legislative setbacks on forces other than the president, among them opposition Democrats, maverick Republicans, and a news media they call unfair.
That gridlock has caused Shomion’s high hopes for action to fade.
“They haven’t done anything yet, and now they’re infighting, so I don’t see it going better,” she says.