Slate "The Detested President - Donald Trumps historic unpopularity will define his presidency."

[NRaleighLiberal]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2018/01/trump_s_historic_unpopularity_is_the_defining_characteristic_of_his_presidency.html

by Jamelle Bouie

To look back at Donald Trump’s first year in office is to see steady assaults on truth, on propriety, and on the rule of law. Looking forward, we can expect more of the same. Already, on the second day of the year, President Trump has asked the Justice Department to investigate a political opponent, a textbook example of authoritarian behavior.


But in chronicling the continued chaos of the administration, we shouldn’t neglect the through-line of Trump’s presidency, his unprecedented unpopularity. Partisan rancor, stark ideological divides, and a media preoccupation with the president’s most fervent supporters has obscured the key reality of the political moment: Most Americans dislike the president and a sizable, intense minority want to restrain his administration by any means possible.

Despite a roaring economy, Donald Trump is the most unpopular first-year president in the history of modern polling. His average job approval—as measured by FiveThirtyEight—stands at 38 percent and his disapproval hovers at 56 percent. Trump claims that he is as popular as Barack Obama was at this point in his presidency, but the record tells a different story. At the start of 2010, an average 46 percent of Americans approved of Obama’s job performance, to 49 percent who disapproved. And while impeachment has yet to enter the larger political conversation, the constituency for removing him from office is larger than the one that backs his tenure.

It is tempting to treat Trump’s unpopularity as old news, given how little it has changed over the past year, and the constant twists and turns of the administration. Indeed, end-of-year coverage has given short shrift to the president’s standing, turning instead to the spectacle of his core supporters and their staunch allegiance, or focusing on the ways Trump has upended the presidency and its traditional expectations for behavior and decorum. But if we’re trying to evaluate Trump and his prospects with any accuracy or understanding, then his popularity—or lack thereof—must take center stage.

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After a shocking presidential election in 2016, we saw in 2017, that political gravity was still real, and that far from upending the game, President Trump has been constrained by it, limping through his first year with little to show but the lowest hanging fruit in the orchard of conservative policy. Now, in 2018, the major question isn’t will Trump fall but how low can he go and what will he take down with him?

[Scurrilous]

1. K&R

[UTUSN]

2. R big #5 for, what will gall him above all is being the most detested ever.

[roamer65]

3. He will be seen as the destroyer of the American empire.