What's Wrong With This Picture?
February 4, 2020
Climate change is the usual subject for my posts. I try not to focus on politics, although I often can't resist landing a glancing blow on the Republicans, most often for their denial of climate change. But this latest political news is so horrendous and dispiriting that I must make an exception.
President Trump's job approval rating has reached an all-time high—49%. That's up 10 percentage points since last October.
These figures come from the reputable Gallup organization, not the in-the-tank Rasmussen bunch. The poll was conducted between January 16-29, in the midst of the Senate impeachment trial (sic).
Trump's 94% job approval rating among Republicans has risen 6 percentage points while the impeachment hearings were underway. His approval rating among Independents is up from 37% to 42% during the same time. Among Democrats, it fell from 10% to 7%.
Where is the outrage? How can an electorate countenance a president who attempted to use taxpayer money to bribe a foreign leader into digging up dirt on a likely political opponent, who lies as easily as he breathes, and who brings down the level of national discourse to the level of a schoolyard bully?
And don't tell me about the roaring economy. Go ask the seventy percent of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, who couldn't afford a sudden $400 hit to their budget, how roaring the economy is. Or go ask a friend you trust on Wall Street what's really happening in a stock market that is more overvalued than any previous time in history, including the crash of 1929? Is it really different this time?
What's different is that we have a president who can't identify the location of the home town of the Super Bowl winner, a major city in the country he likes to think he rules ("Congratulations to the great state of Kansas…"), and who pretends to conduct the band while the national anthem is being sung (Colin Kaepernick spent Super Bowl Sunday serving meals to the needy.)
What's different is we've lost our collective mind.