The Historically Unpopular Cult Leader

 

That Malignant Fascist Big Lie # infinity about having a "mandate" from voters after winning by a razor thin margin of 1.5% over Vice President Harris?  Well, here's more proof that the so-called mandate is a con artist's bluff and bluster:

As of 4:00 p.m. Eastern on Friday, March 21, nearly a majority of adults disapprove of how Trump is handling the job of president (at 49.7%), whereas 46.9% of adults (coincidentally almost identical to the share of the vote he got in 2016) say they approve of what he’s doing. That means Trump is rounding to a -3 net approval rating (the percentage of people saying they approve of his performance minus the percent who disapprove).

Although public opinion on Trump has been slow to move before, today, the fact he is underwater is a product both a loss of support in his approve category as well as a consolidation of undecided adults into the disapprove category. The fence-sitters have mostly jumped off and sided against the president, while his support has softened.

But is -3 all that bad? If 47% of people support him, perhaps the administration will still feel emboldened to pursue Trump’s agenda. We can look at historical ratings to get a good baseline for where a president should be just two months into their term. Here is Trump’s net rating today compared to the net ratings for each 21st-century president over the first six months of their terms:

Two things stand out in this comparison:

1. Yes, -3 is in fact bad. Trump is less popular than his direct historical comparisons, even less popular than Joe Biden (at +17 net approval!) was at this point in his term. And, even worse, when I look at all the approval polling conducted since 1953, Trump is less popular than every one of his predecessors — except for his own negative rating 60 days into his term in March 2017.

2. The trend for Trump is about as negative as it was in his first term. Although the president started higher, at +9 net approval instead of +5 in 2017, this time around, he has lost support about as quickly as he did last time around. At this point in his first term, Trump was at -7, only slightly worse than today’s -3 rating.

We need to be clear- eyed about the fascist MAGAt bum rush that's going on under the guise of a "popular mandate."  The Democratic Party needs to come to grips fast with the fact that it's main obstacle is not the Malignant Fascist's popularity, it's their feckless leadership that's not meeting the moment as an opposition party must, and not one seeking ephemeral "bipartisanship" (the ramroding of the recent CR should have dispelled any notion that the MAGAt Republican Party/ cult is interested in compromise).  That's what polls have been telling us for the past month -- the base wants the party to fight the cascading fascism.  As AOC just put it, we need "brawlers" to fight for our principles and our country before it slips away from us.  They need to get in the ring, now.