Tipping Point by Nancy OhanianA new Ipsos poll for ABC News shows why Trump is going to lose the election in November to the worst candidate the Democrats have nominated in my (very long) lifetime. Biden has nothing to do with it... it's all about Trump, who "is facing broad disapproval for his management of the two major crises gripping the nation, with two-thirds of Americans giving him low marks for both his response to the coronavirus pandemic and his handling of race relations... Evaluation of Trump's oversight of the COVID-19 crisis reached a new low since ABC News/Ipsos began surveying on the coronavirus in March, with 67% disapproving of his efforts. One-third of the country approves of the president's oversight of the pandemic."
The faltering numbers for Trump are also accompanied by concerns over the country's path to reopening.A majority of Americans (59%) believe the push to reopen the economy is moving too quickly, similar to a June 26 ABC News/Ipsos poll when it was 56%.Currently, 15% think the country is moving too slowly, and 26% think the country is moving at the right pace.The more reticent attitudes about reopening the economy appear to challenge Trump's aggressive push to return the country to normal.On Wednesday, the president threatened to "cut off funding" to schools that don't reopen in the fall and criticized the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's guidance as "very tough," "expensive" and "impractical."By Thursday morning, Dr. Robert Redfield, who heads the CDC, told ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America that the agency's guidance for protecting against the novel coronavirus remains the same but that they will be providing "additional reference documents" to aid communities wanting to reopen their K-12 schools this fall.
Writing for the Washington Post yesterday, Ashley Parker, Philip Rucker and John Dawsey reported on how looks at the pandemic and sees himself-- not Americans-- as the only victim who matters. No matter what anyone wants to discuss with him, gone are the usual pleasantries and greetings. He immediately launches into his "woe is me" stand up routine. Poor Señor Trumpanzee "rants about the deadly coronavirus destroying 'the greatest economy,' one he claims to have personally built. He laments the unfair 'fake news' media, which he vents never gives him any credit. And he bemoans the 'sick, twisted' police officers in Minneapolis, whose killing of an unarmed black man in their custody provoked the nationwide racial justice protests that have confounded the president... [He] often launches into a monologue placing himself at the center of the nation’s turmoil. The president has cast himself in the starring role of the blameless victim-- of a deadly pandemic, of a stalled economy, of deep-seated racial unrest, all of which happened to him rather than the country."Maybe Trump has such a narrow, self-centered view of the pandemic because he's refused to allow Dr. Fauci to brief him-- last time was June 2. He's in a world of denial, claiming the pandemic will just disappear on its own any day now. Fauci told the Financial Times yesterday that he doesn't "think it’s an exaggeration to say we have a serious ongoing problem, right now, as we speak. What worries me is the slope of the curve. It still looks like it’s exponential." That's exactly what Señor T doesn't want to hear. It also has a lot to do with what motivated NY Times politics polling reporter Nate Cohn to take to Twitter for a long explanation of why Trump really has already lost the 2020 presidential election."Sometimes, American politics is complicated," he began. "Right now, it’s extremely simple: the public has reached a harshly negative judgment of the president’s handling of the most important issue facing the country, and the issue is so paramount that there’s little room to wiggle out of it. When I’m thinking about how the race could change-- say, return to Biden +6-- I’m thinking about whether those conditions change. Does coronavirus subside or become less salient? Does the public's view of the president's handling improve; or, first, does POTUS change his handling? Today, these possible sources for change seem very distant. Cases are increasing and it is at least possible that deaths will surge again. Yet Trump remains focused on other issues and his demand for a return to normal seems grounded in the assumption that COVID isn't serious."The question remains-- and we'll be discussing it here for the next three-and-a-half months: how much of the Republican Party will Trump drag down the electoral toilet with him in November? Take relatively mainstream Republican incumbent John Katko of New York, for example. Dana Balter is a progressive Democrat in Syracuse, running for a congressional seat that the freaked-out Katko now holds. He no doubt wishes he hadn't sided with Trump and against his own constituents quite as much as he did over the last three-plus years. In her brand new TV ad, Balter is relentlessly holding Katko's feet to the fire. Blue America has a page-- Congress Needs More Progressive Women-- where you can contribute to Balter's campaign and make sure she can keep running this very effective ad until voters in her district know it by heart:
