No one wants to work for Trump. Politico reported that he offered the Defense Secretary job to former Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, who turned him down. A cadre of generals have also told him thaty're not interested, including one of his favorites, Jack Keane. He's either stuck with keeping on the acting nitwit he has, Patrick Shanahan, or finding some TV actor to appoint and hope he can get him through the confirmation process.But prospective Pentagon chiefs aren't the only ones who hate Trump. This morning, Harry Enten reported for CNN that the majority of Americans are against Trump on the wall and the shutdown. "Polls show a majority of Americans blame him and Republicans for the shutdowns, and the majority have also consistently been opposed to his idea of a border wall with Mexico. The average of polls taken since the shutdown began indicate that Americans are blaming Republicans... in the average, about 50% [and] think Trump is most to blame." There is also some sign that Trump may be losing voters in the center of the electorate because of the shutdown and now he is less popular than Nancy Pelosi for the first time during his presidency. And according to Morning Consult, Trump's approval rating has gone down in every single state + DC over the course of the last year-- yes in the states like California where we already hated his guts (and his disapproval sank from 48% to 62%) and in the dumb states where they really love him, like Mississippi (and his disapproval went from just 27% to 39%).Trump’s net approval rating is now underwater in nine states that he won in 2016: Wisconsin (-12), Michigan (-12), Iowa (-10), Arizona (-7), Pennsylvania (-6) Florida (-3), Georgia (-3), North Carolina (-3) and Ohio (-3).This list shows every state with their are disapproval and, in parenthesis where that disapprovals were a year ago:
• DC- 79% (61%)• Vermont- 64% (45%)• California- 62% (48%)• Hawaii- 62% (51%)• Massachusetts- 62% (47%)• Maryland- 62% (51%)• New York- 59% (41%)• Washington- 59% (44%)• Oregon- 59% (43%)• Illinois- 58% (40%)• Connecticut- 58% (42%)• New Jersey- 57% (44%)• New Mexico- 57% (35%)• Rhode Island- 57% (46%)• Colorado- 56% (44%)• Delaware- 56% (41%)• Minnesota- 55% (43%)• Wisconsin- 54% (41%)• Michigan- 53% (40%)• Nevada- 53% (39%)• Iowa- 53% (40%)• New Hampshire- 52% (44%)• Arizona- 52% (35%)• Pennsylvania- 51% (39%)• Maine- 51% (40%)• Florida- 49% (34%)• Ohio- 49% (37%)• Georgia- 49% (35%)• North Carolina- 49% (35%)• Virginia- 49% (41%)• Kansas- 47% (32%)• Utah- 46% (31%)• Montana- 46% (32%)• Missouri- 46% (34%)• TX- 45% (34%)• Alaska- 45% (31%)• Indiana- 44% (33%)• Nebraska- 44% (33%)• North Dakota- 43% (33%)• South Carolina- 43% (31%)• Arkansas- 42% (29%)• Idaho- 42% (30%)• Oklahoma- 41% (27%)• Louisiana- 41% (28%)• Tennessee- 40% (28%)• South Dakota- 40% (33%)• Kentucky- 40% (27%)• Mississippi- 39% (27%)• Alabama- 37% (26%)• West Virginia- 35% (25%)• Wyoming- 32% (23%)
What about Trump's approval ratings? And sure enough, there are some states where he's still really popular, even if it's dropped a bit, right? Right. His approval is 50% or more in 16 states.
• Wyoming- 64%• West Virginia- 61%• Alabama- 58%• Mississippi- 56%• Tennessee- 56%• South Dakota- 55%• Kentucky- 55%• Oklahoma- 54%• Louisiana- 54%• Idaho- 53%• Arkansas- 53%• South Carolina- 52%• Nebraska- 52%• Indiana- 52%• North Dakota- 52%• Montana- 50%
That's 101 electoral votes... not even halfway to the 270 electoral votes needed to keep Señor Trumpanzee in the White House. John Pavlovitz is a progressive evangelical pastor with an excellent blog, Stuff That Needs To Be Said. Yesterday he wrote about why he doesn't care about a member of Congress cussing-- and why none of us should. "And let’s be honest," he wrote-- "you who are clutching your pearls and carrying on and feigning righteous indignation, don’t care either."
If dropping an MF-bomb or profanity or coarse language were at all offensive to you, you wouldn’t have voted for this President a couple of weeks after hearing him talk about women like they’re pieces of garbage-- would you?You wouldn’t have dismissed him saying he could grab them by the p*ssy, as just “boys will be boys locker room banter,” right?You wouldn’t have held your nose and cast your ballot for him to lead our country, after hearing him say he “moved on” a married woman “like a bitch,” would you?You wouldn’t have cheered the expletive-laden speeches and vile interview comments as “straight talk from a guy who tells it like it is,” right?You don’t care about cussing.I know the shows you stream with your kids, I see you Tweeting about missed field goals in playoff games, I hear you when you’re cut off in traffic, and I know the words you let fly when you’re angry at your kids. Let’s be honest, here.I don’t care about cussing either.I care that families are being separated.I care that medical bills are bankrupting people.I care that we’re drowning in guns and daily shootings. I care that Muslims are caricatured into terrorists, migrants into advancing hordes, and LGBTQ people into imminent threats, by our elected leaders.I care that we’re talking about an asinine multi-billion dollar border wall that won’t solve a crisis, even if there were one-- and there isn’t one.I care that we have accused predators in the White House and on the Supreme Court. I care that our climate is changing and our planet is warming and our environment being degraded, and we have politicians who see Science as an adversary.I care that this Administration solicited and welcomed foreign interference in a Presidential election. I care that our President took to Twitter to personally malign Christine Blasey Ford, and that Republican women were fine with that.I care that voter suppression and gerrymandering are making it almost impossible for poor people and people of color to be heard and represented.I care that Evangelical Christians are failing their calling to be lovers and healers and compassionate caregivers to the poor and invisible. I care that racists march without hoods now, that elementary school teachers dress up like border walls, that wrestling coaches cut off a black man’s dreadlocks in public. I care that our President is mentally unfit to lead, and that he is buffeted by a group of professional enablers who know he is unfit and defend him anyway. I care that every single day brings new legislative attacks on people who are already pushed to the brink. I care that so many of my Christian friends seem not to have the slightest interest in the teaching of Jesus.I care about families and sick people and underpaid teachers and hungry kids and unpaid Federal workers and transgender teenagers-- and the millions of beautiful, vibrant, disparate human beings who are daily endangered by the leadership of this country.That’s what I f*ckin’ care about.I wish you cared about those things. You don’t. I wish injustice as discrimination and inequality were offensive to you. They aren’t. I wish marginalized people could merit such passion from you. They don’t.That offends me.
