Trump: Crashing, Burning... Dragging The GOP Down With Him

The Dismantling Of American Democray by Nancy Ohanian

I don't want to get all hung up on polls today but I want to use some recent ones as part of the context of what I want to get to now. First of all the new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll-- through the lens of Chuck Todd and company-- shows Trump underperforming in virtually every demographic (except Nazi and KKK members, which the mainstream, media doesn't poll).

• Men: Trump +8 points in the new poll (was +11 in the 2016 exit poll)
• Women: -32 points (was -13)
• Whites: +5 (was +20)
• African Americans: -84 (was -81)
• Latinos: -36 (was -38)
• Independents: -19 (was +4)
• Whites with college degrees: -19 (was +3)
• Whites without college degrees: +18 (was +37)

Todd's point is to show "how vulnerable Trump is right now." It does. And so does a piece-- New Polls Show That Trump Should Be Afraid. Very Very Afraid at The Bulwark by Democratic political strategist Bruce Gyory. "It's not," wrote Gyory, "that his approval rating is low (although it is). It's that his disapproval rating is so high... The least significant data point in the Fox News poll was that Trump’s job approval declined from 46 percent in July to 43 percent in August. Instead let’s focus on his disapproval rating. Not only was it up 5 percentage points to 56 percent (only one point below the highest disapproval rating of his presidency in October of 2017), but it’s up above 50 percent for almost every demographic: 64 percent among independents, 53 percent among men, 46 percent among white men, 53 percent of those older than 45, 61 percent among suburban women (59 percent of women overall), and 55 percent among whites with a college degree. Trump’s disapproval ratings even inched up to 11 percent among Republicans (only 7 percent of Democrats approve of Trump’s job performance) and a full 26 percent among self- described conservatives (only 11 percent of liberals approve of Trump’s job performance). He has a whopping 71 percent of moderate voters disapproving as well. In short, Trump’s approval-to-disapproval ratio got worse among those he needs to have any chance of winning: older white, suburban, moderately to conservative and Independent voters."

[P]undits should stop making the mistake that Trump can carry the Electoral College while securing under 42 percent of the popular vote, instead focusing far greater attention on the fact that Trump has a hardening majority of the American electorate opposing his re-election. In fact pundits⁠-- as well as the president himself⁠-- misunderstand how he pulled off the upset in 2016.

The truth is that Trump’s base did not elect him. His base brought him close, but what paved the road for the inside straight that secured his majority in the Electoral College, was a late swing away from Hillary among suburban women, middle-aged Hispanic men, those with some college but not a four year degree, and independents, combined with a drop in the black turnout. Trump is weaker today than he was in November 2016 in each of those demographic subsets, and the economic uncertainty and distress in the bond markets are affecting the investment accounts of those older voters Trump needs to have any chance of mounting a comeback.

If you doubt the accuracy of that observation go to the cross tabs of the most recent Pew data and track Trump’s disapproval ratings (48 percent among whites, 55 percent among men, 79 percent among Hispanics, 58 percent among Catholics, 55 percent of those with some college but not a four year degree as well as 55 percent of those with a high school degree or less, 55 percent among seniors and 17 percent disapproval among Republicans and Republican leaning Independents). If those levels of opposition hold in terms of Trump’s job approval ratings and he continues to run underneath those levels in terms of securing support from voters for his re-election, Trump will lose unless the Democrats fail to nurture and corral this majority of opposition to Trump’s presidency. Trump has time to change course and the Democrats are capable of imploding, but Donald Trump has shown precious little capacity for change.

By Jamie Bainbridge

Lately everyday we're seeing more bad economic news. That's much worse than bad polling news. The trade war with China is a catastrophe for him because it's going to hurt him in rural areas and probably give the Democrats Iowa, Florida, North Carolina and possibly Georgia and help Democratic House and Senate candidates everywhere. The ramifications, though, go beyond the Farm Belt. Yesterday, for example, Reuters reported that U.S. Steel plans to lay off hundreds of workers in Michigan. Trump wasn't going to win Michigan anyway. He's polling worse there than he is nationally. But the worse he does, the worse he will drag down other Republicans with him. Fred Upton looked like toast already but this could be the final straw for Tim Walberg as well.

In a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification filed on Aug. 5, the Pittsburgh-based company said it expects to let go fewer than 200 workers following its decision to halt production at the Michigan facility.

In mid-June, the company said it would idle two blast furnaces at its Great lakes and Gary Works plants, citing lower steel prices and softening demand.

U.S. Steel said the lay-offs at the Michigan plant could last beyond six months. They will impact nearly every area of the facility, from blast furnace to finishing operations, a company spokeswoman told Reuters.

The lay-offs call into question claims President Donald Trump has made about the resurgence of the domestic steel industry. Last week in Pennsylvania, Trump said his 25% tariff on foreign imports has turned a “dead” business into a “thriving” enterprise.

Domestic steel prices did rise in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s tariffs. But they have fallen dramatically amid improved supplies and weakening demand from the auto and farm machinery sectors.

Prices of hot-rolled coil are down nearly 37% from their 2018 peak.

U.S. Steel’s stock price has plunged 73% since March 1, 2018, when Trump announced his decision to crack down on foreign imports.

An official at the United Steelworkers union, which represents U.S. Steel workers, said lay-offs were also planned for the Gary Works facility in Indiana. U.S. Steel’s spokeswoman, however, said the company “currently” doesn’t expect “any employment level changes” at the Indiana plant.

The city of Gary and the state of Indiana have offered U.S. Steel a $47 million tax break package to help it invest $750 million in modernizing Gary Works, its largest North American plant.

The state’s tax credits and worker training grants were tied to the condition that U.S. Steel retain at least 3,875 jobs at Gary Works.

Another deadly economic headline: Tariffs could cost U.S. families up to $1,000 a year, JPMorgan forecasts was published by the Washington Post but picked up in newspapers across the country. Taylor Telford: "More than a year into the U.S.-China trade war, American consumers are about to find themselves squarely in the crosshairs for the first time, with the average household facing up to $1,000 in additional costs each year from tariffs, according to research from JP Morgan. Consumers, whose spending fuels about 70 percent of the U.S. economy, have been largely shielded from previous rounds of tariffs, which have left businesses reeling and upended global supply chains. But that's about to change with the 10 percent levies on roughly $300 billion in Chinese imports, about a third of which will take effect Sept. 1. Those tariffs will primarily target consumer goods."

The effect of these tariffs is so significant that it caused President Donald Trump to publicly acknowledge, for the first time, that American families will bear some of the burden of his trade policies. Amid growing concern that the tariffs could damage the economy, Trump abruptly announced he would to delay tariffs on certain popular products like laptops, footwear and video games-- about two-thirds of the impacted items-- until mid-December.

"What we've done is we've delayed it so they won't be relevant in the Christmas shopping season," Trump told reporters last week. "Just in case they might have an impact on people."

But that's not enough to eliminate the added burden for consumers. JP Morgan researchers calculated that the 10 percent tariffs would cost American households about $1,000 annually. If the tariffs are raised to 25 percent, as Trump has warned, consumers' costs could go as high as $1,500 a year, researchers estimated.

"The impact from reduced spending could be immediate for discretionary goods and services since tariffs are regressive," JP Morgan researchers wrote in a note last week. "Unlike the agriculture sector which is receiving subsidies/aid to offset the impact of China's retaliatory actions, there is no simple way to compensate consumers."

For consumers, the tariffs fallout will be big enough to erase the benefits of Trump's 2017 tax cuts, which boosted many American families' take-home pay by several hundred dollars last year, according to the Tax Policy Center. Because the tariffs would impact households in the run-up to the 2020 Election, JP Morgan strategists predict there is a "good chance" they will be reversed.

The Post also noted yesterday that 3 out of 4 economists predict a U.S. recession by 2021. "The outlook," reported Jonnelle Marte, "reflects growing skepticism among economists and investors that the U.S. economy will be able to withstand a protracted trade war with China without serious harm amid a weakening global outlook." Trump and his team of nincompoops refuse to acknowledge there's a recession on the way. But behind closed doors with elite wealthy Republicans... well, "At a fundraising luncheon this week in Jackson, Wyoming, headlined by Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney acknowledged the risks to the GOP elite behind closed doors. If the U.S. hypothetically were to face a recession it would be 'moderate and short,' Mulvaney told roughly 50 donors."

And that brings us to the point: The Longer Trump Stays in Office, the More Americans Oppose His Views. David Graham wrote that "Trump has managed to reshape American attitudes to a remarkable extent on a trio of his key issues-- race, immigration, and trade. There’s just one catch: The public is turning against Trump’s views."

Trump has long sought to use racial tension to gain political leverage, but this summer he has become especially explicit about exploiting and exaggerating racial divisions, with a series of racist attacks on four Democratic congresswomen, and then on their colleague Elijah Cummings, as a strategy ahead of the 2020 election.

But the Reuters poll casts doubt on that strategy: “The Reuters analysis also found that Americans were less likely to express feelings of racial anxiety this year, and they were more likely to empathize with African Americans. This was also true for white Americans and whites without a college degree, who largely backed Trump in 2016.”

Among the details, the number of whites who say “America must protect and preserve its White European heritage” has sunk nine points since last August. The percentages of whites, and white Republicans, who strongly agree that “white people are currently under attack in this country” have each dropped by roughly 25 points from the same time two years ago.

...[W]hite Americans are 19 percent more supportive of a path to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants than they were four years ago, and slightly less supportive of increased deportations. Other polls find related results. A record-high number of Americans-- 75 percent-- said in 2018 that immigration is good for the United States. Although the Trump administration took steps last week to limit even legal immigration, the Trump presidency has seen an increase in the number of Americans who support more legal immigration-- not just among Democrats, but even slightly among Republicans.

Trump, like other presidents but arguably more so, exerts a special type of gravity by virtue of his ability to set the topic of conversation. His fearmongering on immigration has led even Trump critics to argue that if moderates and liberals do not limit immigration, it will embolden hard-liners like Trump. Yet far from suggesting a large appetite for greater immigration restrictions that’s being unmet, the polling data suggest a large appetite for more immigration that’s going unfulfilled thanks to Trump’s aggressive rhetoric. Moreover, there’s been evidence of a backlash against the president’s invective since the first months of his term. Trump has managed to force a national conversation around immigration, but rather than bring people to his side, he has convinced them he’s wrong.

One big problem for Trump is that voters have now gotten a chance to see him implement ideas that seemed novel or at least worth a shot during the campaign, and they don’t like what they’re seeing in practice. A trade war with China might have seemed worthwhile in summer 2016, but now that there’s actually one being fought, the public is having second thoughts, and fears of a recession are growing. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released yesterday found that 64 percent of Americans think free trade is good, up from 57 in 2017, 55 in 2016, and 51 in 2015. Meanwhile, the percentage who say free trade is bad has dropped 10 points since 2017.

...With his focus on increasing racial divisions, stoking immigration fears, and fighting a trade war, President Trump is poised to stake his reelection on turning out the same base that he did in 2016, and hoping that those voters who elected Barack Obama but stayed home rather than cast a ballot for Hillary Clinton will take a pass once again. But Trump’s margin of victory in 2016 was razor-thin, because he lost the popular vote and won key midwestern states by only a few tens of thousands of votes. If anti-racist voters remain more enthused than prejudiced ones, it’s difficult to see how he would repeat that feat.