By Alethia Kasben
Managing Editor
Posted: July 17, 2017 3:56 PM
As we near President Donald Trump’s six months in office mark, various polls are showing his approval rating at about 40 percent and his disapproval rate in the mid-to-high 50 percent range.
Though while some people care – including I am sure Mr. Trump himself as he has defended the approval rating while also calling it “fake news” in a single tweet – I assume those who wholeheartedly support the president do not.
Instead, these numbers, or rather the action of reporting the numbers, probably further alienate those core supporters from their sources, which include the mainstream media.
The numbers are interesting in a historical context, seeing as Mr. Trump has been unpopular throughout his campaign and presidency, which FiveThirtyEight points out.
FiveThirtyEight called Mr. Trump’s unpopularity during this early part of his term in office unusual and said he is the only president to get a majority of Americans to say they disapprove of the job he is doing this soon.
Partisan polarization is what matters, and while some voters may disapprove of the president’s performance in office, it’s a big leap to see that translate in today’s age of strident partisanship to voters deciding to back candidates of the other party.
Whether Mr. Trump’s numbers remain weak and help Democrats down the ballot in 2018 remains to be seen. But to me, polling has almost turned into the meteorologists reporting the weather; people love to say how wrong they are.