‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the land, pundits are trying to figure out where the voters stand—now that Republicans have passed their tax bill, Santa Trump’s gift to his adoring fans.
Though there aren’t many of these. Only 32 percent of Americans approve of the way he is handling his job, while 67 percent disapprove. And 70 percent feel the country is on the wrong track, while only 30 percent believe it is on the right track.
Which is rather odd in the face of the economy’s performance. Share prices are at record levels after posting the biggest one-year post-election gain (28 percent) since FDR won his fourth term in 1944. That should have big investors and participants in pension funds and various savings devices such as 401(k)s bursting with seasonal good will toward all Republican office-holders. Jobs are plentiful—there are 6 million vacancies and talk of job scarcity has been replaced by talk of worker scarcity. Consumers are confident and the housing industry is doing well, with sales of existing homes at their highest level in over a decade and first-time buyers emerging from parents’ basements and couches to take their initial step on the housing ladder.
And yet: seven out of ten Americans think the country is headed in the wrong direction. One plausible explanation is that in the era of Trump it is no longer “the economy, stupid,” that determines voters’ mood. With Republicans controlling both the White House and Congress, their party and its sort-of leader should be getting credit—deserved or not—for the economy’s performance. But they have lost every important election since Trump took the oath of office.
Three factors might be at work. One is that the policy positions taken by Trump appeal only to his hard core, estimated at about 30 percent of the electorate. Almost 70 percent of Americans are concerned about climate change; Trump says it’s a hoax. More than half of those polled think the new tax bill is a bad idea: the president is gambling that when families see lower taxes reflected in higher take-home pay they will not remember that the major beneficiaries are big corporations and property developers, not to mention hedge fund billionaires who successfully lobbied to retain their special privileges. Oh yes, and they will not realize that the tax cuts aimed at the middle class are temporary, while those handed to corporations are permanent.
The second factor accounting for “wrong direction” votes in the midst of economic prosperity might be an emerging sense that the president is demeaning the office. The vulgarity of his tweets, his insistent repetition of lies (he won the popular vote, more than half of women voted for him, the tax bill will cost him a fortune, no harasser he), the tiresome ubiquity of his presence on Twitter and television, are taking their toll. A Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 70 percent of respondents feel his behavior is “unpresidential,” and 67 percent disapprove of his tweeting.
Finally, there is a feeling of nervousness that a man of so erratic a disposition, who so personalizes policy differences, has his finger on the nuclear button. Another Washington Post-ABC News poll found that only 37 percent of Americans trust Trump to handle the situation with North Korea responsibly, while 72 percent trust our military leaders. Note that on this issue, as on those related to domestic policy, Trump policies get support in the 30 percent range, while some 70 percent like neither him, nor his behavior, nor his policies.
Before writing Trump off as a political force, keep three things in mind. The mainstream media’s relentless campaign against him, at times veering from the truth, is bound to affect public opinion. In a full-blown election campaign Trump will have a powerful megaphone with which to respond—the perquisites of office: Air Force One, press conferences, an ability to dominate the news.
Second, polls might not be a good guide. Many Trump supporters, knowing they are considered under-educated, racist deplorables, aren’t about to answer honestly when faced with pollsters and their clipboards. A slammed door or “undecided” is often the alternative to “confessing” that one is for Trump.
Third, the president is blessed with his opponents. The Democratic party is engaged in a civil war between what we might call the Clinton moderates and the Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren progressives. Its congressional leaders, Nancy Pelosi in the House and Chuck Schumer in the Senate, hail from San Francisco and New York City, respectively. They are spokespersons for the social liberals in the party, and travel to middle America only under duress.
To them, anything between, say, libertine Hollywood and show-me-the-money Wall Street is fly-over country. The issues they find most compelling are who may use which toilets, how to force the Little Sisters of the Poor to pay for contraception, how to prevent deportation of illegal (oops; undocumented) aliens, and how to make it easy for children to choose their gender. Their positions garner rave reviews in their coastal constituencies, but don’t play well in the rest of America.
It is only ten months until voters have an opportunity to vote for their representatives and about one-third of their senators, during which time they will decide whether the new tax regime helps them or only “the rich.” At this writing voters by a margin of 50 percent to 39 percent say they prefer that Democrats rather than Republicans control Congress after the 2018 elections. In the next ten months Trump will emit thousands of tweets in an effort to influence the result of local elections, something he has been unable to do so far. He knows that Democrats, in control of key investigating committees, won’t be content merely to embarrass him. They have one aim: impeachment.
