A strange phenomenon is creeping across the country and it’s clear that fans and followers of former president Donald Trump aren’t sure what to make of it.
Amidst what looks to be a slight uptick in popularity for current president senile Joe Biden, Trump’s approval numbers are going in the opposite direction. Polls are polls and American opinion sways back and forth like so many willows in the breeze, but the minds behind Trump’s likely 2024 bid, including the lifelong real estate developer and first-time politician himself, could be somewhat troubled by them.
Should they be? In a piece titled “Trump facing rough poll numbers as he hits the road for GOP candidates, mulls 2024 bid”, Tom Howell, Jr. reported at The Washington Times the other day:
“Former President Donald Trump’s favorability rating is gradually sliding downward even as the ex-president hits the road on behalf of Republican midterm candidates and hints he is ready to launch a 2024 bid for another four-year term in the White House.
“An NBC News poll released Sunday reported that just 34% of registered voters have a positive view of Mr. Trump, compared to 54% who have a negative view. Only 32% had a positive view of Mr. Trump in April 2021, a few months after he left office. His rating bounced up to 38% by August, as President Biden stumbled over Afghanistan and COVID-19, but positive feelings about Mr. Trump have slid downward since then. By comparison, 42% of voters have a positive view of Mr. Biden and 47% have a negative view.
“Mr. Trump remains the de facto leader of the Republican Party, and he is hitting the road to stump for GOP congressional and gubernatorial candidates and rail against a series of government investigations into his post-2020 election actions and the trove of sensitive government documents found at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Mr. Trump recently told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that he doesn’t think he will be indicted. But if he is charged, he said that wouldn’t deter him from running for president.”
The last item is by far the most important, but first a few observations on the poll itself. The most glaring concern with the poll – other than the fact it was conducted by left-leaning NBC News, of course – was it was based on registered voters. This basically means an interviewer need only ask a respondent whether they’re registered to vote, and upon receiving a positive rejoinder, it’s game on to run through the myriad of questions drawn up by some political brain in a cubicle somewhere.
Needless to say, answers gathered from a sampling of likely voters is much more believable, mainly because said group is demonstrably politically active just through indicating they’ve made plans to exercise their duty to participate. I’m guessing that a certain percentage of the population neither knows nor cares about the election, probably won’t show up and is more susceptible to what they hear on network news or social media than to actually study the issues themselves.
This category contains day-to-day apathetic losers who were registered to vote merely by renewing their driver’s license at the DMV.
It's fall, isn’t it? This means the major league baseball season is winding down, the World Series is in the distance and the NFL is already a couple weeks into its months-long annual journey. The NBA season is about to start and the NHL isn’t far behind the round-ballers. Here’s thinking the channel is tuned to whatever non-politics is on the tube in registered voter households rather than Chuck Todd and George Stephanopoulos blubbering about abortion and what the Dobbs decision will mean for Democrats in Congress.
But then again, Democrats rely on the hopelessly uninformed to constitute the preponderance of their base. So who really knows?
The other sizeable problem with the survey is it was taken in early September when folks aren’t paying attention to what’s coming in two months. They’re still hearing from the establishment media that senile Joe’s ratings are dramatically shooting up (they’re really not) and Trump is constantly associated with the words “classified documents”, “no one is above the law” and last but not least, “indictment”.
The final term presents a temporary shot of adrenaline to every Democrat heart as they respectively fantasize about the former president being brought before a Washington DC jury in an orange prisoner’s jumpsuit and then hearing the “guilty on all counts” pronouncement by twelve jurists who voted for Joe Biden in 2020. Liz Cheney will wait anxiously outside the courtroom for the final verdict and her opinion will be the most sought after by the talkers when all is said and done.
As reported above, Trump told Hugh Hewitt that he didn’t think he’d be indicted – and that it wouldn’t factor into his readiness to run again in two years in any case – but he’s probably being a tad too optimistic on both counts. Joe Biden’s handlers crave any excuse they can conjure up to continue to slander Trump, and the establishment news media also needs fresh Trump “meat” to feed to the perpetually hungry liberal lions. Here’s thinking an indictment will mean months’ worth of additional Trump bashing, and because of the coverage, is almost certain to take place.
The MAGA base will be revved up because of the blatant and shameless arrogance of the liberal ruling class, but Trump’s backers are already amped to try and get back at the Democrats. It’s the independent voter that makes a difference here, the few percentage points in the mushy middle that are “undecided” and will likely procrastinate until they’re filling in the little bubbles on their ballot before truly making a selection.
So yes, this will have – or should have – and impact on Trump’s deliberations before his official announcement comes sometime after November 8. It wasn’t too long ago that Trump himself admitted the one thing that could keep him from running for president again was a downturn or issue with his health, but here’s speculating that all the noise from the obviously corrupt Joe Biden/Merrick Garland DOJ might be taking its toll on Trump’s prospects and deliberations altogether.
Not on the man himself, of course. Any upsurge in the liberal/Democrat witch hunt to destroy Trump only makes him madder and more likely than ever to jump back into the American political fray which was suited for him like a tailored costume on a circus performer. It’s almost like the old line in the Mel Brooks classic comedy Blazing Saddles, when one of the main good guy characters counseled against shooting one of the bad guys: “No, don’t do that (grab your gun). If you shoot him (Mongo) you’ll just make him mad.”
By now, even the eternally over-reactionary Democrats should’ve learned that they’ll never get what they desire in reference to completely eliminating Donald Trump from American politics by provoking him and getting him – and his tens of millions of supporters – angry. The unfairness of it all sparks a visceral reaction from conservatives, one that’s been growing since way before Ronald Reagan was elected president.
The establishment media has never treated conservatives and most Republicans evenly, and most people probably see the current get-Trump drive by Democrats as their latest salvo in the never-ending war to stifle all resistance so as to justify the secret police punishing any opposition to the Soviet-like rulers in the Democrat camp.
But is it actually different this time? It’s been my impression that Trump’s approval rating hasn’t changed much in the past year or so, or at least since the Afghanistan debacle and the myriad of senile Joe’s public relations blunders really started taking hold among Americans, forcing the current president’s favorability numbers to plummet. For every point that Biden lost it appeared like Trump gained something, if only a dwindling of the pool of people who swore they’d never vote for the New Yorker again in a thousand lifetimes.
But as time goes on and more of the media poison leeches into America’s collective psyche, doubts fester about the ultra-controversial and combative Donald Trump’s ability to come back and then win the oh-so-critical 2024 election. Nancy Pelosi’s January 6 Committee is and always was a joke and it’s had little impact on Trump’s future viability.
But how would skittish Republicans take it if Trump were under a formal criminal charge? The NeverTrumpers will hoot and holler with “See, I told you so!” righteous indignation. The Democrats will switch discussions of real issues – inflation, crime and the horrible illegal immigration crisis, etc. – into a bash session on Trump while attempting to brand all conservatives as similarly culpable insurrectionist swine.
The wishy-washy GOP establishment will disavow Trump and even some of his closer backers will try and distance themselves from the former president lest they be roped into the feeding frenzy. It’ll be a sad time, indeed.
I am not saying that Donald Trump shouldn’t run again and that he wouldn’t be entirely justified to do so. And I’m not suggesting that any indictment by the Biden corrupt-o-crats would be the least bit legitimate and worthy of pursing on the merits. But I am arguing that if Trump continues to be portrayed as a cretin by the media, it will impact his ability to mount another issues-based campaign.
The worst that could happen would be to have the 2024 presidential election boil down to a referendum on Donald Trump the man. That’s one fight America can’t afford to wage and a war that conservatives simply can’t win. With Joe Biden almost certain to be vulnerable to innumerable attacks on his character and performance, all factors must be weighed, for our own sakes.
Joe Biden economy
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