Trump Is Still Dangerous-- But Most Of America Has Started Ignoring Him

Robert Reich released this video above before the new Morning Consult weekly poll came out. But it seems to back up what Reich said. "Trump's net approval sank to its lowest point since Putin handed him the key to the White House following the release of a redacted version of Mueller’s report. While 57% of registered voters disapproved of his job performance, only 39% approved. Worse news for Trump is that among independent voters, 32% approve and 58% disapprove (41% strongly).

Most indicators point to voters being pretty much done with Trump:

• By a margin of 63-37%, most Americans say the country is headed in the wrong direction. (Among independents, the score is a more frightening 66-34%.)
• Asked if they planning on voting in the Democratic or Republican presidential primaries in 2020, 45% of registered votes said the Democratic primaries and just 34% said the Republican primaries.
• Asked who they would vote for if the general election was today, 24% said definitely for Trump, 10% said probably for Trump, 49% said definitely for someone else and 8% said probably for someone else. (among independents, that comes out to 16% definitely for Trump, 10% probably for Trump, 46% definitely for someone else and 11% probably for someone else.
• Asked who they would trust more to protect Medicare and Social Security 48% of voters said the Democrats in Congress and 29% said the Republicans in Congress
• How important of a priority is each of these areas for Congress to tackle:

• Reducing federal deficit- 80%
• Healthcare reform- 79%
• Immigration reform- 74%
• Infrastructure- 72%
• Climate change- 63%
• DACA protection- 62%
• Reducing economic inequality- 59%
• Gun control- 58%
• Investigating Trump's conflicts of interests- 52%
• Regulating tech companies- 52%
• Impeachment- 41%
• Building a wall- 40%

• Asked which version of Russian interference they believe, 23% said Trump's version and 46% said Mueller's version. Among independents, only 14% believe Trump's version.

A new poll from Tulchin shows Bernie beating Trump in head to head match-ups in 3 key states:

Michigan- Bernie- 52%; Trump- 41%
Wisconsin- Bernie- 52%; Trump- 42%
Pennsylvania- Bernie- 51%; Trump- 43%

And by the way, even Trump staffers were ignoring him:




You remember Joe Lockhart? He was a Bill Clinton press secretary for a couple of years toward the end of Clinton's term. After that he worked doing communications for Kerry's campaign, Facebook and the NFL, a kind of middle of the road, establishment Democrat. He did an OpEd for the NY Times yesterday, There's A Bigger Prize Than Impeachmentm making the point that "letting Trump stay in office will destroy the Republican Party." He claims that leaving "Trump in office is not only good politics-- it is the best chance for fundamental realignment of American politics in more than a generation" since he's already "three years into destroying what we know as the Republican Party. Another two years just might finish it off. Trumpism has become Republicanism, and that spells electoral doom for the party."

Trump has abandoned most of the core principles that have defined Republicans for the past century. Free trade abandoned for protectionism. Challenging our adversaries and promoting democracy replaced by coddling Russia and cozying up to dictators near and far. Fiscal conservatism replaced by reckless spending and exploding deficits.

What’s left of the party is a rigid adherence to tax cuts, a social agenda that repels most younger Americans and rampant xenophobia and race-based politics that regularly interfere with the basic functioning of the federal government.

Republicans today are the party of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson-- a coalition that, in the face of every demographic trend in America, will mean the long-term realignment of the federal government behind the Democrats.

Lockhart eagerly acknowledges that Trump is unfit for office and that "he represents a clear and present danger to our national security" but judges the whole sordid mess in terms of the Republican impeachment of his old boss. He fears united the GOP around defending Trump; he fears Democratic overreach-- which would be something that hasn't happened in 7 or 8 decades-- and he fears the Senate rejecting impeachment. "And," he wrote, "in politics, a loss is a loss-- there are no moral victories." No salient arguments there.

Allowing Mr. Trump to lead the Republican Party, filled with sycophants and weak-willed leaders, into the next election is the greater prize. Democrats have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to realign American politics along progressive lines, very much like Ronald Reagan did for Republicans in the 1980s.

Trumpism equals Republicanism as long as Donald Trump is at the top of the ticket. And a real shift to progressivism in America will be delivered by a devastating rebuke of the president and his party, a rebuke that will return control of the Senate and state houses across the nation. Politics is always a gamble-- and this is the best bet we’ve had in a long time.

I would bet that Lockhart defines progressivism as the neo-liberalism of the Clintons, Joe Lieberman and Joe Biden. I would also bet that Lockhart, like other centrist Democrats, would welcome Republicans leaving the GOP into the Democratic Party to the point of allowing them to take over and helping the corporatists shut down actual progressives. We owe American history an impeachment of Trump, not as a moral victory-- and independent of a shameless Republican Senate refusing to convict hi-- but as a gift to posterity. And as an example of calling out a criminal as a criminal, marking him forever, whether he lives in the White House or not. School children in the future should be encouraged to piss on his grave.