@oralloy,
It was stupid before, it's stupid now/. branco and garrison are fuckhead lackwits. Thes. Trump's new culture wars conflict with american support for BLM, the demonstrations, and pretty much everything he's railiing against. He's getting no traction,, his numbers keep trending down, statlingly so. He' soounding so old and fat AND 1850-ish.
Quote: g
Aaron Blake 2 hrs ago
The Washington Post logoTrump keeps choosing all the wrong battles
When President Trump delivered a thinly veiled campaign speech in the White House Rose Garden on Monday, he made precious little mention of the resurgent coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 130,000 Americans. He instead used the storied setting to air personal grievances, engage in culture wars, lodge factually challenged attacks on Joe Biden and brag about his tenure as president.
a man walking down the street: President Trump speaks to reporters as he walks from the Oval Office to board Marine One on Wednesday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)© Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post President Trump speaks to reporters as he walks from the Oval Office to board Marine One on Wednesday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
He followed that up Wednesday by posting a picture of himself at another storied setting — the White House Resolute Desk — promoting beans and other Goya products, in an attempt to needle liberals who pushed for a Goya boycott over its executive’s praise of Trump.
While the country and even many GOP leaders are calling out for leadership in the face of crisis, Trump is instead preoccupied with using his incomparable perch to push the same grievances he usually does.
But here’s the thing: Not even those seem to be working.
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Trump has in recent weeks chosen a number of political battles that polls increasingly show do nothing to move the needle in his direction — and if anything show the limitations of his unceasing base strategy.
Let’s break it down, issue by issue.
Reopening schools
While Trump has said relatively little of substance lately on the coronavirus outbreak, he has focused like a laser on school reopening. But a new Quinnipiac University poll shows Americans actually oppose his approach on this by a 2-to-1 margin, with 61 percent disapproving of his plans to reopen schools and only 29 percent approving. Women disapproved, 69-23.
Further, as The Post’s Philip Bump detailed Wednesday, polling from Yahoo News and YouGov this week showed 77 percent of people say the country’s priority should be to limit the spread of the virus even if students can’t go back to school, while just 23 percent said reopening schools should be the bigger priority.
a screenshot of a cell phone
Polls have also long shown Americans favor a more cautious approach to reopening the economy than Trump has advocated. The combined result: Views of Trump’s handling of the outbreak have very steadily declined, and continue to do so.
Confederate flag
Trump last week expanded his defense of Confederate monuments to include the Confederate flag. In a tweet that baselessly attacked black NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace for his reaction to the discovery of a noose in his garage stall, Trump wagered that NASCAR’s recent ban on the flag had hurt its ratings.
Not only was Trump wrong about its ratings, but his defense of those who want to fly the flag increasingly cuts against the grain in American society. The same Quinnipiac poll showed a startling move against the flag, with 56 percent calling it a symbol of racism and just 35 percent saying it was more about Southern pride. Even Southerners said 55-to-36 that it was a symbol of racism.
Polls have shown Trump is on firmer ground when it comes to opposing the removal of Confederate monuments, but this poll — along with the muted GOP reaction to Trump’s gambit — suggests he overextended.
Police killing black people
Trump has in recent weeks criticized the Black Lives Matter movement, cast aspersions about the true nature of the protesters, and played down the idea that there is a problem with police killing black people.
On all three counts, again, he’s on the wrong side of an emerging consensus.
CBS’s Catherine Herridge asked Trump on Monday, “Why are black people still dying at the hands of law enforcement in this country?” Trump shot back: “So are white people. What a terrible question to ask. So are white people — more white people, by the way.”
Click to expand
That’s very wrong if you look at per capita numbers, but it’s also politically dubious. A recent Washington Post-Schar School poll showed 69 percent of Americans said George Floyd’s death was “a sign of broader problems in treatment of black Americans by police” rather than an isolated incident. A more recent New York Times/Siena College poll showed 59 percent said Floyd’s death was “part of a broader pattern of excessive police violence toward African Americans.”
Black Lives Matter
What’s more, Trump’s attacks on Black Lives Matter don’t appear to have taken hold. A recent Pew Research Center poll showed 67 percent of Americans support the movement. The Times poll also showed a striking and highly unusual shift in favor of the movement, when compared to past polls.
And when it comes to the protesters specifically, polls have also consistently shown a majority of Americans support their cause, with a CBS News-YouGov polls showing people back the protesters 53-34.
Other polls have shown concerns about some elements of the protests, particularly among Republicans, but the overarching movement has been met with large and rising approval. And Trump’s decision to fight back against the mere idea that we have a problem with police treatment of black people has placed him on an island politically.
Defunding police
Trump has made this a centerpiece of his early ads attacking Biden. But not only has Biden explicitly said he opposes defunding the police; a poll shows the vast majority of Americans don’t believe it means what Trump has suggested — eliminating police.
A Monmouth University poll last week showed 77 percent of Americans understood the phrase to mean changing how police operate, while 18 percent said it meant getting rid of police departments. Even Republicans overwhelmingly disagree with Trump’s interpretation.
Again, a nod to Bump for this chart:
a screenshot of a cell phone
Law and order
Perhaps the main fixture of Trump’s campaign efforts in recent weeks has been law and order — a phrase that Trump has tweeted more than a dozen times in ALL CAPS. His campaign has run ads featuring images of violence and warning that this would be our reality under Biden.
The first problem is that these scenes occurred on Trump’s watch. They’ve occurred on the watch, more specifically, of a president who pledged that “the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon — and I mean very soon — come to an end.”
But beyond that, he doesn’t seem to be highlighting an area of particular strength for himself. The Yahoo-YouGov poll showed 51 percent of Americans said the country would be “less safe” if Trump was reelected, compared to 34 percent who said it would be “more safe.” By contrast, Americans were evenly divided — 39-39 — on Biden.
Other polling during the large-scale protests has shown 80 percent of Americans believe things are “spiraling out of control” in this country. And 62 percent of Americans in the Monmouth poll said Trump’s response to the recent protests has made the situation worse, compared to just 20 percent who said he has made it better.
Trump’s reelection strategy was best summed up recently by The Post’s Jacqueline Alemany: “Trump’s spaghetti on the wall campaign is still seeking its special sauce.” But it’s not just that he’s trying a lot of different things that have nothing to do with solving the country’s current crisis; he’s also proactively choosing battles that place him on extremely shaky political footing. And they seem to have done nothing to improve his faltering standing in the 2020 race.
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