Trent Steele wrote:swishnicholson wrote:06hawkalum wrote:I've probably posted this before but I don't understand the fatalism expressed here, especially the assumption that Trump is going to win reelection.
He has a -10 net approval rating and he grows more demented with each passing day. I highly doubt that progressives are going to say "hey, we care so much about our ideals that we will sit this one out/vote third party. We are fine with a 6-3 or 7-2 Trump picked conservative Supreme Court for the rest of our lives."
Just don't see it happening.
Hope I'm right!
Is there? I try to stay away from the thread enough that I often miss the zeitgeist. Whether he will win again or not (and it's always been my one big, dumb, prediction that he doesn't stick around to lose), it's depressing enough that he's shown his hand and it hasn't eroded his support at all. Trump is at 42.5% approval. At this time or after in their first terms Obama was at 42.8, Bush Jr. at 43.8, Clinton at 46.5 and Reagan at 42.9. All, of course, won reelection. Trump has more of an uphill battle, but it's certainly been proven you can win even though for much of the time most people thought you were doing a bad job. All of those guys surged to some degree though as it got closer to election time.It's hard to see Trump winning over bunches of new people, but I've given up having faith in the American electorate.
I think approval % are a poor metric. I think you get a better sense of his chances by looking at net (dis)approval compared to others, and more importantly, net strong (dis)approval. Unlike the others identified, Trump's support is (almost) completely inelastic.
I'm not really trying to judge his chances, just my level of dismay. Your'e right though,that's what I was alluding to with my "uphill battle" comment. Though the fact that it has proven so inelastic in both directions does leave the one path to victory being alienation of voters who oppose him, while his depressingly solid base turns out.
