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trapdoor

Governor
First, it's worth pointing out that this is by David Brooks, a right-wing guy who is basically offended by Trump's lack of social gentility, but who actually supports most of his policies. I think the contributions of such members of the anti-Trump camp are impotent, because very few people really care about Trump's social graces, or lack there off. Brooks may grasp his pearls and reach for the fainting couch because Trump broke away from the stodgy form of Republicanism Brooks favors, but that criticism won't get much traction. So, Brooks would be wise to focus less on Trump's personality and more on the ways his policies are going to hurt Americans. But that would require Brooks to admit that his right-wing economic notions are bullshit, so don't hold your breath.
It's also worth pointing out that for whatever reason, Brooks has always been among the "neverTrumpers." He doesn't support Trump's policies, and based on his past writings he doesn't really think Trump HAS policies. I'm not certain that his objection to Trump is in any way based on Trump's lack of "gentility."


Anyway, it's true that all the anti-Trump efforts have done little to his approval ratings. Although his approval slid in the first couple weeks of his presidency, since then, those ratings have basically just been bouncing around within the margin of error for over a year.

I'd expect more of the same in the future. Given what a nightmare Trump has been across all fronts, it's hard to picture something coming up at this point that would hurt his approval ratings. Even if he were found guilty of the child rape he was accused of, for example, I'm sure the Trump devotees would just convince themselves it was the work of a liberal judge (even if it turned out to be a Republican judge). The Trumpsters are not going anywhere -- they've committed mindlessly to the man and will not be dislodged by new revelations, whatever they are.
Obviously Trump hasn't been a "nightmare on all fronts" or that would be reflected in his popularity. Nightmarish presidents lose popularity. Even non-nightmarish presidents (Truman springs to mind), frequently sag in popularity. Trump came to office with about 40 percent popularity, and that popularity as you point out, has not significantly changed. There aren't a lot of red MAGA hats where I live now -- but they exist somewhere.
More worrisome, there are others that could actually move TOWARDS Trump -- for example, if there were a big terrorist attack, that tends to be a great benefit to the approval numbers of the president. If there were to be a 9/11 or OK City-level attack, Trump could rise a lot. Similarly, if Trump were to start a war, he could be very popular until people got bored with it. So, I don't think Trump can fall much (33% is probably the floor), but he could rise a lot (Bush was a terrible president and yet he was once over 90%, and his father was just under 90% at his peak).
Well, if you define either Bush as "terrible," I can see how you'd derive the idea that Trump is nightmarish. The reason Bush II's popularity spiked after 9/11 was that he did the right things after 9/11 -- he set a hard line and went after the sources of the problem.

Still, the criticism is working. It doesn't have to shift approval ratings to work. It needs to shift election outcomes. And elections have been going the Democratic way. Doug Jones now sits in Jeff Sessions's old spot, and Cory Lamb replaced Tim Murphy. Even in what were hard-right districts, things are looking good for the left. Democrats don't need to push Trump's approval ratings lower than the 41% where they stand today. 41% won't get him re-elected. He'll need about 50%. Obama was at 51%, Bush at 53%, when they were reelected. So, all the anti-Trumpers need to do is keep his historically awful approval numbers from rising much.
This is where you're wrong. The criticism, to the extent it does anything, merely solidifies Trump's support. He (and his supporters) knew from day one that they wouldn't get a break from the media, neverTrumpers, or either coast. The lefty support for demogogues like teen-totalitarian David Hogg is stirring the fire. Keep it up and the Democrats not only do not gain seats in either house, they'll lose more seats in the Senate.
 
Well, if you define either Bush as "terrible," I can see how you'd derive the idea that Trump is nightmarish. The reason Bush II's popularity spiked after 9/11 was that he did the right things after 9/11 -- he set a hard line and went after the sources of the problem.
No he didn’t. Saudi money and Saudi nationals attacked us but the Bush family and the house of Saud have long ties. The reason Bush’s approval ratings went up is that patronizing Americans don’t pay attention to what’s really important. Like when a governor running for president says if you want to be seen as a strong president you must be a wartime president.
 

trapdoor

Governor
No he didn’t. Saudi money and Saudi nationals attacked us but the Bush family and the house of Saud have long ties. The reason Bush’s approval ratings went up is that patronizing Americans don’t pay attention to what’s really important. Like when a governor running for president says if you want to be seen as a strong president you must be a wartime president.
Saudi nationals attacked, but they trained on bases in Afghanistan under training from Al Qaeda, from which they got their funding, too. Going after that organization in that place was clearly the correct action.
 

Arkady

President
It's also worth pointing out that for whatever reason, Brooks has always been among the "neverTrumpers." He doesn't support Trump's policies, and based on his past writings he doesn't really think Trump HAS policies. I'm not certain that his objection to Trump is in any way based on Trump's lack of "gentility."
Brooks is in favor of lower taxes for the rich, less regulation, and he's hostile to reproductive choice, identity politics, higher minimum wages, more centralized government, and much of the rest of the Democratic Party's views. He's also aligned tightly with Likudnik policies in Israel (e.g., his son even served in the IDF). When it comes to policies, he's mostly on the same page as Trump, other than when it comes to free trade and immigration. But Trump's brand of conservatism is diametrically opposed to Brooks's in style, if not in substance. Brooks is all about high-middle-brow thoughtfulness, and is forever bemoaning the loss of public virtue and the personal moral degradation of our leaders. That was a comfortable fit with his politics back in the day when Republicans were collectively freaking out because Clinton cheated on his wife, but it's become a conflict now that the Republicans are led by Trump.

Obviously Trump hasn't been a "nightmare on all fronts" or that would be reflected in his popularity
Yes, I suppose if he were a nightmare on all fronts, he'd have the lowest average approval ratings of any American president in the history of such polling. Oh, wait, that's right, he does. But surely if he were a nightmare on all fronts, his average wouldn't just be the lowest average ever, but even his high points would be lower than anyone else's average. Oh, wait, that's right, his high points are lower than anyone else's average. Before Trump, the lowest average approval rating in Gallup history was 45.4%. Trump's all-time high was 45%, the first week he took office, and he's spent every subsequent week below that. So, yes, it turns out that Trump's having been a nightmare on all fronts did, in fact, get reflected in his popularity.

The reason Bush II's popularity spiked after 9/11 was that he did the right things after 9/11
Incorrect. The reason his popularity spiked after 9/11 is he was president during the biggest security failure in his history. The hike was instant. It didn't wait until he'd decided to attack Afghanistan, or to form a Homeland Security agency, or anything of that sort. From the September 10 poll, to the very next poll starting on September 14, it rose 35 points. People are sheep, and when they feel like the wolves are stalking them, they cozy up to the shepherd, regardless of what he's doing. He can be frozen, reading "The Pet Goat" and he'll still be the most popular guy around.

This is where you're wrong. The criticism, to the extent it does anything, merely solidifies Trump's support.
I'm sure that you're right that among the brainless and the evil, attacking Trump just makes him more popular. They celebrate his flaws, and so calling those flaws out just gives them more to celebrate. But their support was already rock solid. They're not who we should be concerned with. It's the 10% of Americans who represent the space between where his current approval ratings are and where they'd need to be for him to win re-election. Attacking him has kept them from falling under his thrall. Hopefully it can continue to do so. The evil 40% of Americans who support him are beyond redemption. Let monsters like that spend their days attacking children like David Hogg for daring to stand up to the NRA. We needn't worry about them. We need to worry about the people with enough decency that they can be reached.
 

trapdoor

Governor
Brooks is in favor of lower taxes for the rich, less regulation, and he's hostile to reproductive choice, identity politics, higher minimum wages, more centralized government, and much of the rest of the Democratic Party's views. He's also aligned tightly with Likudnik policies in Israel (e.g., his son even served in the IDF). When it comes to policies, he's mostly on the same page as Trump, other than when it comes to free trade and immigration. But Trump's brand of conservatism is diametrically opposed to Brooks's in style, if not in substance. Brooks is all about high-middle-brow thoughtfulness, and is forever bemoaning the loss of public virtue and the personal moral degradation of our leaders. That was a comfortable fit with his politics back in the day when Republicans were collectively freaking out because Clinton cheated on his wife, but it's become a conflict now that the Republicans are led by Trump.
Brooks does favor some of those things. And Trump appears to favor some of them, some days, which is, I think, the primary reason Brooks doesn't like him. It's not a matter of gentility, but of erratic behavior. Brooks wants someone who provides a traditionally conservative sheaf of polices and then sticks to those policies. That's not Trump.

Yes, I suppose if he were a nightmare on all fronts, he'd have the lowest average approval ratings of any American president in the history of such polling. Oh, wait, that's right, he does. But surely if he were a nightmare on all fronts, his average wouldn't just be the lowest average ever, but even his high points would be lower than anyone else's average. Oh, wait, that's right, his high points are lower than anyone else's average. Before Trump, the lowest average approval rating in Gallup history was 45.4%. Trump's all-time high was 45%, the first week he took office, and he's spent every subsequent week below that. So, yes, it turns out that Trump's having been a nightmare on all fronts did, in fact, get reflected in his popularity.
I'd have to go check, and without checking I'll take your word for it, but I think Truman's approval in 47 was as low as Bush's. Certainly it was nearly as low, but he was re-elected the following year (perhaps Dewey was a "bad candidate").

Incorrect. The reason his popularity spiked after 9/11 is he was president during the biggest security failure in his history. The hike was instant. It didn't wait until he'd decided to attack Afghanistan, or to form a Homeland Security agency, or anything of that sort. From the September 10 poll, to the very next poll starting on September 14, it rose 35 points. People are sheep, and when they feel like the wolves are stalking them, they cozy up to the shepherd, regardless of what he's doing. He can be frozen, reading "The Pet Goat" and he'll still be the most popular guy around.
Mere pap. If there was a security failure, it happened when the previous administration failed to take out Bin Laden when it had ample opportunity. I've seen the film of Bush reading on 9/11. I see no one frozen. Yes, some people pull together in a crisis -- I guess that's not you? Or do you just mean it's not Democrats in general?

I'm sure that you're right that among the brainless and the evil, attacking Trump just makes him more popular. They celebrate his flaws, and so calling those flaws out just gives them more to celebrate. But their support was already rock solid. They're not who we should be concerned with. It's the 10% of Americans who represent the space between where his current approval ratings are and where they'd need to be for him to win re-election. Attacking him has kept them from falling under his thrall. Hopefully it can continue to do so. The evil 40% of Americans who support him are beyond redemption. Let monsters like that spend their days attacking children like David Hogg for daring to stand up to the NRA. We needn't worry about them. We need to worry about the people with enough decency that they can be reached.
The bulk of the 40-plus percent of the U.S. that voted for Trump over the alternative was not, nor is it, brainless or evil. What it is, however, is made up of people who live in the middle of the U.S., and who fed up to the gills with that sort of characterization from people on the coastlines who never comment to it or about it save to criticize. Hillary Clinton says, "I won the places that represent two-thirds of America’s gross domestic product..." -- which means she's ignoring that the places she didn't win have been losing jobs to off-shoring and automation since her husband held office. She should have been trying to help them, and she might have won. Those "brainless evil" people you just smeared simply want to work and support their families and not be called brainless and evil by people not fit to lace their workboots.
 
I'd have to go check, and without checking I'll take your word for it, but I think Truman's approval in 47 was as low as Bush's. Certainly it was nearly as low, but he was re-elected the following year (perhaps Dewey was a "bad candidate").
I'm pretty sure a lot of people who voted for Truman in 1948 were forced into it by their husbands, male bosses, and mean old uncles. :rolleyes:
 

Arkady

President
Mere pap. If there was a security failure
If? There was a big smoking hole in Lower Manhattan that was a testament to the security failure. Now, understandably, Bush's fans want to blame that on his predecessor (despite the fact the scumbags in the GOP tried to pretend Clinton was just "wagging the dog" when he worked to take Bin Laden out). But we know the timeline well enough.

We know that Bush took office in January 2001. We know that shortly after he took office, the Hart Rudman report came out -- a massive, years-long blue-ribbon, bipartisan analysis laying out crucial, urgent change recommendations to secure the nation against attack (including setting up a centralized homeland security agency, which would have helped to bring disparate pieces of evidence together to give us a clearer picture of threats). We know that Bush shelved that report, doing nothing with it, and instead indicating that at some indeterminate point in the future Cheney would look into the matter. We know that until September of 2001, the president didn't hold even a single principals meeting on terrorism -- despite the fact Clinton had been holding them weekly, as a way to "shake the trees" to keep people mobilized in addressing the threat. We know that Bush ignored the urgent plans put forward by Tenet and Clarke to take the fight to al Qaeda. We know that Bush instead prioritized upper-class tax cuts. We know that he set modern records for vacation time that first year. We know that when he got a presidential briefing telling him that Bin Laden was determined to strike in America, he went on a month-long vacation to his Texas mansion. And we know that only in the ninth month of that run of incredible negligence did the 9/11 attack get carried out.

That's not to say that the security failure wouldn't have happened if we'd had a decent president. It's possible that it would have, even if we'd had a president who'd implemented the Hart-Rudman reforms in a timely way, and had been having weekly meetings on terrorism, and had put in full work days for the month leading up to the attack, and who'd been "running around with his hair on fire" about the imminent threat, the way guys like Tenet and Clarke were. It's possible that the different pieces of evidence we had about what was about to happen still wouldn't have come together in a way that allowed us to identify the plan and stop it. We'll never know, though, because dumbo was asleep at the switch.

The bulk of the 40-plus percent of the U.S. that voted for Trump over the alternative was not, nor is it, brainless or evil.
Nearly every one of them is brainless or evil. There may have been a few who had poor vision and accidentally checked the wrong box, or were temporarily insane, but they're a rounding error in the big picture.

Hillary Clinton says, "I won the places that represent two-thirds of America’s gross domestic product..." -- which means she's ignoring that the places she didn't win have been losing jobs to off-shoring and automation since her husband held office.
As a reminder, those places gained jobs under Clinton, just as they gained jobs under Obama. The job losses occurred under Republican presidencies. Let's take Michigan as an example, since they're one of the ones that went for Trump to throw him the election. Here's what the unemployment rate did under each recent president in Michigan:

GHW Bush +0.9%
Clinton -3.2%
GW Bush +6.5%
Obama -5.9%

Lest you think I'm cherry-picking a single state, here it is for Pennsylvania:

GHW Bush +2.7%
Clinton -3.0%
GW Bush +2.7%
Obama -1.8%

and Wisconsin:

GHW Bush +0.4%
Clinton -0.7%
GW Bush +3.1%
Obama -3.5%

So, for each of those three key states, the pattern was identical: worsening labor markets under the Republicans, improving under the Democrats.

But, sadly, there's a paradoxical effect to these improvements. When times are tough, even racists can be convinced to think about their pocket books ahead of their tribal resentments. And that allows Democrats to win elections after Republicans have trashed the job market. But once things improve, the racists start to take those improvements for granted, and think they have the luxury to vote based on hating "those people" again. So, in a sense you're right that not all those who voted for Trump are brainless or evil. Many of them are brainless AND evil.

I suppose that I should take some satisfaction that they screw themselves while helping people like me, when they vote for Republicans. But they also screw over less fortunate people who were too smart and decent to vote for Republicans, and that's a tragedy.
 
They should ignore it, because it's not true.
The goal of Mueller, Comey, and Democrats in general is not to eliminate or remove Trump. Just marginalize him.
Their actual goal is kicking the legs out from under the Republican Party, sow dissent and encourage enough division to win the mid-term elections.

And they're doing a great job of it.
Trump is perfectly capable of marginalizing himself and his party. If he doesn't die in prison for all the damage he's done to this country, his brain-dead base will vomit up an even greater political obscenity.
 

trapdoor

Governor
If? There was a big smoking hole in Lower Manhattan that was a testament to the security failure. Now, understandably, Bush's fans want to blame that on his predecessor (despite the fact the scumbags in the GOP tried to pretend Clinton was just "wagging the dog" when he worked to take Bin Laden out). But we know the timeline well enough.
I agree, the Clinton administration probably should have done something to prevent 9/11. There was a security failure. Clinton did NOT try to take Bin Laden out -- he blew up empty fields and aspirin factories. As for timeline, the Clinton administration had had 8 years -- the Bush administration about seven months.


That's not to say that the security failure wouldn't have happened if we'd had a decent president. It's possible that it would have, even if we'd had a president who'd implemented the Hart-Rudman reforms in a timely way, and had been having weekly meetings on terrorism, and had put in full work days for the month leading up to the attack, and who'd been "running around with his hair on fire" about the imminent threat, the way guys like Tenet and Clarke were. It's possible that the different pieces of evidence we had about what was about to happen still wouldn't have come together in a way that allowed us to identify the plan and stop it. We'll never know, though, because dumbo was asleep at the switch.
Glad to hear a liberal finallly admit that Clinton wasn't decent, or is that now what you're saying? Again, eight years, vice seven months.

Nearly every one of them is brainless or evil. There may have been a few who had poor vision and accidentally checked the wrong box, or were temporarily insane, but they're a rounding error in the big picture.
Basically any response to this would involve either defending 40 percent of the U.S. that includes many of my friends, or simply a long, drawn out "F****************K YOU!!! Forty percent of the U.S. is not brainless or evil, and that's the only real response that accusation merits.
 

Arkady

President
I agree, the Clinton administration probably should have done something to prevent 9/11
They did. It's not like Al Qaeda wasn't trying to attack America in the Clinton years. They just weren't succeeding, at least within the US itself. The Clinton team was serious about taking on that threat. Clinton had regular principals meetings to constantly bring disparate strands of evidence together, and to challenge his top people to do more. There's a reason that a Republican like Clarke speaks so well about his efforts. And Clinton also worked to keep al Qaeda on the defensive, with strikes on al Qaeda camps.

Moreover, to Clinton's credit, he didn't imagine he knew it all himself. That's why he set up the Hart-Rudman commission to take a bipartisan look at the threat, drawing on deep expertise across the political spectrum, to come up with a set of recommendations for what more he could be doing to prevent future attacks. It's that report that came in, in January 2001, making various recommendations like the creation of a centralized homeland security function. Unfortunately, by then doofus was president and he just shoved it in a drawer and ignored it. Several months later, the biggest security failure in American history happened.

There was a security failure. Clinton did NOT try to take Bin Laden out -- he blew up empty fields and aspirin factories.
As you know, Clinton did try to take Bin Laden out, and the treacherous conservatives thrashed him for it, insisting that he was just trying to distract from the fact he got a blowjob. You know perfectly well that he didn't intentionally hit empty fields and aspirin factories. He hit targets that the intelligence apparatus and military told him were terrorist assets or possible locations of Bin Laden.

As for timeline, the Clinton administration had had 8 years -- the Bush administration about seven months.
Exactly. Clinton kept us safe from a 9/11-type attack for eight long years and Bush couldn't even do so for seven months.

Glad to hear a liberal finallly admit that Clinton wasn't decent, or is that now what you're saying?
Yes, obviously, that's not what I was saying. If you could identify what, specifically, you misread that badly, I'd be happy to explain how you went wrong.

Basically any response to this would involve either defending 40 percent of the U.S. that includes many of my friends, or simply a long, drawn out "F****************K YOU!!! Forty percent of the U.S. is not brainless or evil, and that's the only real response that accusation merits.
I'd say about 30% brainless, plus 5% evil, plus another 5% that's both brainless and evil. If that includes many of your friends, then you need to find a better social circle.
 
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