Many Trump critics relished a recent Quinnipiac poll showing that President Trump’s job approval had fallen to a new low, at a net -23 percent (34 percent approve, 57 percent disapprove).
Commentators friendly to the president sprinkled a few grains of salt on the survey. For one thing, they noted, Quinnipiac has always had Trump’s job approval a bit lower than other pollsters. Gallup, for example, has Trump’s job approval/disapproval at 38 percent, 56 percent, and the Real Clear Politics average has it at 39 percent, 55 percent. So things aren’t that bad!
Furthermore, it was observed, Quinnipiac two months ago had Trump at an almost identical 35 percent, 57 percent. So the new result was no sign of hemorrhaging support. No reason to panic!
Others added that Bill Clinton’s job approval numbers were in comparable territory at this point in his first term, in 1993, and he turned out okay! (Though one might note that the 1994 midterm elections didn’t, and that Clinton had unusual political talent.)
Lost in the back and forth—and especially in the efforts to be somewhat reassuring—was the most notable finding in the poll. It had to do with age. Donald Trump’s job approval/disapproval was 40 percent, 54 percent among Americans 65 and over; it was an almost identical 39 percent, 55 percent among 50-64 year olds; it was slightly worse at 35 percent, 55 percent among those 35 to 49 years old; and among Americans 18 to 34, Donald Trump’s job approval was 19 percent approve, 67 percent disapprove, an amazing -48 percent.
Now we are not knee-jerk respecters of youth. We give no greater weight to the opinions of the young than to those of the old. In fact, we’re inclined to give them less, as the young lack experience, and experience is a great teacher. We would even go so far as to say that the overvaluation of the sentiments of the young may be one of the curses of our age.
On the other hand, one would have to be blind not to see the political risk for Republicans and conservatives in these numbers. First impressions matter. Most people don’t change their political views radically from the ones they first hold. For young Americans today, Donald Trump is the face of Republicanism and conservatism.
They don’t like that face. And the danger, of course, is that they’ll decide their judgment of Trump should carry over to the Republican party that nominated him and the conservative movement that mostly supports him. If he is indeed permitted to embody the party and the movement without challenge, the fortunes of both will be at the mercy of President Trump’s own fortunes.
Perhaps the danger is exaggerated. One could argue, after all, that the worst-case scenario for Trump’s first term is Nixon’s second. Yet the Republican party and the conservative movement recovered quickly from that, didn’t they?
Well, those of us who made the case for Nixon in the fall of 1972 on college campuses, who cast our first vote for him that November, who were tempted to rationalize his behavior for at least a while as Watergate unfolded, and who couldn’t help but feel a pang of sorrow as he resigned amid victory whoops from his critics in 1974 remember those years all too well. They weren’t the easiest of years to be on the right.
But we also remember that the new and exciting conservative columnists in the Washington Post and the New York Times, George Will (in his early 30s) and Bill Safire (in his early 40s), were tough on Nixon. We remember that one of the most prominent conservative Republican senators, James Buckley, who had won dramatically as a Conservative third-party candidate in New York in 1970, did not join other Republicans in rallying to Nixon’s defense. We remember that Jim Buckley’s younger brother Bill made sure National Review was no cheerleader for Nixon. We remember that John Ashbrook, an eloquent and principled congressman from Ohio, then 43, launched a quixotic primary challenge against Nixon in 1972 to ensure that voters understood Nixon didn’t speak for conservatism. We remember Jack Kemp, a Republican congressman turning 40, who was shaping a new economic message for the party. We remember neoconservatives of all sorts who had very little history with Nixon or the GOP providing fresh thinking and new energy.
In sum, we remember that young Americans could look at the Republican party and the conservative movement and see fresh faces and other voices than those of Richard Nixon and his defenders.
One might add that dozens of those defenders in Congress were wiped out in the 1974 midterm elections. One could also note that the subsequent GOP comeback was made easier by the fact that Spiro Agnew had resigned, so that Nixon was succeeded by a vice president who had been in office for only a few months and who wasn’t particularly identified with him. That incumbent was then challenged in the 1976 primary by a governor of California who had his own political identity distinct from Nixon’s, and who won the Republican nomination in 1980. Thus the GOP and the conservative movement were quickly able to achieve real separation from Nixon.
Can they do the same from Donald Trump? It’s urgent that Republicans and conservatives begin to try. The future of the Republican party and of conservatism depend on their standing for loyalties and principles more fundamental than the fortunes of Donald Trump.
