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Monday, January 21, 2019

Trumpproval

Plenty can go wrong in two years with a would-be authoritarian con-man in the White House and a whole national bigoted bullying brain-dead party supporting him in lockstep, there are plenty of reasons to stay vigilant and critical (ideally with minimal paralyzed panic or circular firing squads for once), but, well, turns out, Trump's historically unprecedented high disapproval mattered for the midterms, here's hoping it still matters when the time comes to vote the bastard out. Via my favorite headline news/politics summary electoral-vote.com:
Four new polls suggest that Donald Trump's base is beginning to show some cracks. A Pew Research Center survey shows Trump's approval at 37%, near the lowest it has ever shown. Even more important, among non-college whites, 50% approve of Trump's performance and 48% don't. That's a net swing of -15 points compared to a year ago. CNN's poll found Trump's approval among non-college whites at 45%, down 9 points since early December. Quinnipiac University's poll found Trump's approval among those voters slipping from +19 to +10, a 9-point drop. Then there is the Marist poll. 57% of the respondents said they would definitely vote against Trump in 2020 while only 30% would definitely vote for him. Among non-college whites, 42% said they would vote for him but 44% said they would vote for someone new. Polls go up and down, but there are three major things to keep an eye on. First, the longer the shutdown goes on, the more it hurts Trump. Second, the economy and stock market are doing fine at the moment, although there are signs of instability. If they go south, it will be a disaster for Trump. Third, Trump's team is still negotiating with China. What happens if China decides it prefers to wait for 2 years rather than make any permanent concessions of consequence? Any or all of things could shake things up quickly.

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