How much of that was paid in rubles?Why did Trump's approval ratings fall back to their lowest point ever? Corollary: why are establishment Democrats never seen by most voters as anything better than the lesser of two evils?Congressional Republicans started getting hopeful that Trump's disapproval numbers had bottomed out and were even starting to turn around. A sucker like Kevin Cramer is giving up his safe North Dakota House seat to try running for the Senate. Now that it's apparent that Trump's toxicity is going to hurt GOP candidates, it's too late for him to change gears again. Yesterday's CNN poll had dismal news for the GOP. Trump's approval is back down to 35%, after it had climbed to 40% after the State of the Union address. It fell to its lowest ever among Republicans-- just 80% approval of their illegitimate "president." His approval among independents is at 35%, a political death sentence. So why is Trump back in the toilet? CNN pointed out that "While the poll was in the field, much of the President's public agenda focused on gun laws, an area where the poll finds Trump earns mostly negative reviews. Just a third of Americans approve of his handling of gun policy, 54% disapprove and another 12% say they have yet to make up their minds. Those who live in gun-owning households give him higher ratings than others: 52% in gun households approve of his work on gun policy; it's 17% among all others."Tommy Christopher, writing for ShareBlue published a savage interpretation of the Trump ratings collapse, blaming it primarily on his contemptible and jerky, puppet-like reaction to the Parkland massacre.
His initial reaction to the killing of 17 people at a Florida high school was to go into hiding. He then blamed the students and tried to exploit the tragedy for his own benefit.While grieving loved ones laid one of the slain students to rest, Trump golfed just a few miles away. And his aides called the tragedy a “relief” from the administration’s many scandals.But even given time to consider his next steps, Trump’s response has only gotten worse.He used empathy cliff notes at a “listening session” with survivors of gun violence. And he responded by obsessing about arming up to 40 percent of our teachers.That led to a plunge in Trump’s approval, along with a surge in support for gun control....70 percent of Americans expressed overwhelming support for “stricter gun control laws.” That’s the highest percentage since 1993, and fifteen points higher than in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook school shooting.And 57 percent said they would support a “ban on the manufacture, sale and possession of rifles capable of semiautomatic fire, such as the AR-15.” That goes much further than the assault weapons ban that Republicans allowed to expire in 2004... Trump and the Republicans are standing with the NRA for now. But Trump’s cratering approval numbers prove just how out-of-touch that stance is with the nation.
As we saw yesterday, while corporations are protecting their bottom lines by disassociating from the NRA, tone-deaf politicians (from both parties) are going into extinction mode. The imbeciles at the DCCC are refusing to jettison their most outspoken NRA allies-- like Jeff Van Drew (NJ), Anthony Brindisi (NY) and Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ)-- and will feel the consequences at the ballot box in November.NRA-Dem Jeff Van Drew didn't want to run but the DCCC talked him into it
