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| Just who is pulling the strings |
It has happened, and with only one month of Donald Trump entering the White House for the second time. The polls have him tanking and as The New Republic put it, "Even more tellingly, however, the new polls show that majorities are rejecting Trump’s authoritarian governing tactics." Those voters who temporarily lost their minds voting for the Oval Office lunatic have reattached to reality and decided on democracy, not living under a dictator. TNR adds this...
"And on top of that, Elon Musk, who’s been tapped to carry out some of Trump’s most autocratic designs, fares even worse than Trump does in this polling."
I covered the polls in my earlier post, "Donald Trump takes a dive in the polls - Democracy wins," where it is clear T-rump is flailing wildly with many of the top pollsters showing him to be losing support. Quickly again...
"CNN finds that 47 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s performance while 52 percent disapprove"
"Gallup finds him at 45 to 51"
"And The Washington Post finds that 43 percent support what Trump has done in his first month while 48 percent oppose it."
Greg Sargent from TNR is interviewing political scientist Julia Azari and she thinks "public backlash to Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s authoritarian overreach give Democrats an opening." The scenario from Azari...
"They’re [the polls] not entirely unexpected, but they really do underscore the point that I’ve been trying to make since the November election, which is that there’s not a lot of conclusive evidence that Trump’s specific agenda is very popular. In a context in which there’s a lot of distrust of government, it’s not obvious that strong executive overreach is the answer to that distrust."
Then Azari talks about voters who must have voted for Trump to see what the outcome of him returning to the White House would be. That's hard to believe but then Sargent comes up with...
It's the Bobbsey Twins
"What’s been missing is a big argument about why Trump’s authoritarianism is bad. On the other hand, we are seeing this polling here, which shows majorities are troubled by the authoritarian rule they’re seeing. I would like those numbers to be higher and maybe they’re not higher because of what you’re pointing out, which is the lack of the counternarrative explaining it all."
Sargent asks...
"Should we take at least a tiny bit of solace from the fact that majorities are already seeing Trump as an overreacher and potentially even an abuser of his powers?"
Azari's answer is simply that Democrats must build power; something they have sorely lacked for the last several years. Something the Republican Party has emphasized as far back as when Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the House. Something that put Bill Clinton and Barack Obama in the White House. Maybe they need to bring back James Carville and David Axelrod...together. This is not too far-fetched; you combine the two strategies and add to that modern methods and technology.
Azari and Sargent both agree, it's time for the Democrats to jump on the bandwagon and ride this wave of the rejection of the Trump adminstration while it's on the upward swing. And then there is the other element in Trump's boondoggle...Elon Musk. Here's Sargent's take...
"By the way, speaking of unpopularity, let’s talk about Elon Musk. The Post poll finds that only 34 percent, and only 26 percent of independents, approving of Musk’s role. Even worse, Americans disapprove by 2 to 1 of Musk shutting down government agencies, and 63 percent are concerned by his team’s access to sensitive government data."
There's much more in this piece, and everything combined could be a prelude to bringing Trump to the fore. No, we'll never get to all the secrets of the White House maniac, but maybe we can get enough cards on the table to bring the American public to the conclusion Donald Trump is corrupt and should not be in the position he is in.
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