Source: CNN
Article link (CNN)
President Trump is disliked at approximately the same rate as President Nixon was before he resigned from office 44 years ago according to a new Marist College poll. There is a major difference between Republicans, half of whom rate Trump's job performance as excellent and Democrats, 80% of whom rate Trump's job performance as poor. Trump has kept his job approval rating steadily around 40% for much of his presidency, but his approval rating is lower than any president since Nixon. The big question this fall will be whether voter discontent with Trump will translate into losses in the midterm Congressional elections as was the case with Reagan, Clinton, and Obama.
Discussion Questions
1. How would you rate President Trump's job performance so far? Excellent, pretty good, fair, or poor and explain why.
2. Does the partisan divide in the presidential approval rating data surprise you or is it what you would expect in this era of political polarization?
3. Will the Democrats make big gains in the November election as the article suggests or will Republicans keep control of the House of Representatives and/or the Senate?
The partisan divide in the presidential approval rating is no surprise. Even before President Trump was elected he was being supported by most fellow conservatives, despite not making any real actions in office yet. On the other hand, the larger majority of liberals disliked and did not approve of President Trump before he even began in office as well. In this era of politics, polarization is at some of the highest extremes the United States has ever seen, therefore these percentages were unsurprising and expected.
ReplyDeleteI read another article on these ratings (Washington Post) which pointed out some of these similarities but also some very big differences. For both Nixon and Trump, their general approval rating (not split up by party) is about the same. However, a closer look at the ratings between parties reveals that Republicans are much more loyal to Trump than they were to Nixon, and far more Democrats oppose Trump than opposed Nixon. Obviously, this shows how much deeper the divide has gotten between Democrats and Republicans, but it also makes me wonder how the polls would change if/when information from the Special Counsel regarding Donald Trump is released. When Watergate broke, for example, Republican approval ratings went down significantly. I wonder if, given the unwavering loyalty of the Republican Party to Trump, a similar drop would occur if Trump ends up getting charged.
ReplyDeleteI would rate Trump's performance so far as poor, and not only because of his political views. I believe that it is extremely important for our president to lead by example, and the example being set by Trump is extremely disturbing. We are now part of an age where the presidency is plagued with scandal, with a new story coming out every week taking the country and media by storm. The various misconducts of the president continue to distract the nation from the serious issues that need addressing, and flood our media with nonsense. When we no longer live in an era where the president tweets at 3:30am about his various feuds, I will feel like we can trust our government again.
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