Is a disturbing narrative emerging?

[karynnj]

28. I would suggest that the normal "honeymoon", normalization did not happen with Trump

to the degree that normally happens. If you look back at the begginings of any of the modern Presidents, there are many who usually defer negative judgment to give the President a chance. In addition, the entire pagentry of the Presidency, the oval office, speaking to both chambers of Congress - with the expected behavior of the audience, announcing members of the cabinet and having them - except for rare exceptions - confirmed all tend to be part of making the winner - the PRESIDENT OF THE US.

Trump's numbers are very very unusually low. I think that his early steps - of immediately banning some from 7 Moslem countries in a poorly written, porrly thoughtout and badly exececuited executive order and other missteps have actually stepped on the very natural ramping up of respect just for being President. Remember this is a President whose party controls both Houses of Congress. Think back to what Obama was able to do in that position and remember that at this point on Gallup, Obama was 62-26 ( http://pollingreport.com/obama_job1a.htm )

Look at the Gallup tracking poll - not a favorite polling source of liberals, but a three day tracking poll that has been done for decades. Other than the first three or four days of his administartion - he has been underwater. Sure, there are times where he has started to rise, but since those very early days ended, he has been underwater -- and a high point for him is to be just 8 points underwater rather than around 12.

As to coverage, I think the mainstream newspapers have been doing an execellent job - as have the mainstream reporters. They - not Mother Jones, buzzfeed, Daily Kos etc - are the ones doing the hard investigative reporting. Seriously, seeing Andrea Mittchell essentially thrown out of two Tillerson "press availabilities" - which apparently were limited to seeing him shake hands with peers - not speaking and heaven forbid that he should have to answer questions. I can not imagine Kerry or Clinton refusing to do so.

I do think that his numbers will likely at some point improve. As was predicted last fall, the Iraqis will recapture all their land from ISIS in a few months. I fully expect - that even though it was Obama's coalition and Obama's well thought out plan letting the people living their take the lead and (importantly) to reclaim and reestablish civilization in areas won back - that as soon as that happens, we will see Trump claiming this was - in fact - his secret plan to beat ISIS. Then a few months later, Raqqa is likely to fall and ISIS may no longer have land. (Note a President Clinton would have seen the same thing and would have known that this was not the end of the effort needed.)

Note that many past President's have gotten a bump when they needed it by traveling abroad. Seeing our President meeting foreign leaders and being honored is always a good show for us --- except this President has already alienated most of Europe, Austraila (!), Canada etc. Going to Russia would be a terrible idea for obvious reasons. So, I do not see the usually easy PR points from that.

I also really fear that the lack of appointing senior leadership in the State Department and the firing of so many high level career people really will leave the embassies and our foreign policy in chaos. I remember how with each big or small victory Kerry had how he always spoke of the support he received from his team - the State Department. Even when he was awarded at least 2 major international awards (the Tipperary Peace Prize (Ireland), the Chatham House award (UK) he spoke of how he was accepting these awards for his "team", which he had always been able to depend on to provide solid support to help him in what he did. Contrast that to Trump's view that his son-in law with no foreign policy experience and no real team would do everything! (If Tillerson were more personable, I would be very sorry that he got the title, but not the President's support or a working Department.)

The only hope for us is that our usual allies will cover for our diplomats being completely useless. Just as Kerry tried to help Boris Johnson fit in - I bet the Europeans have done that with Tillerson.

On the other hand, his healthcare bill will either be rammed through with the AMA, the AARP, etc adamantly against it and most people will see that it is not good for them OR he will not be able to make a deal. Bad for any President, but this is a President whose loyalist think he is the best deal maker ever!

What is more disturbing is the Sussex poll that was on other threads here. The headline in the WP article was that Clinton's unfavorable numbers have fallen since the election while Trump's have risen. I clicked on the link to the study and I think there is more there than that. For one, the self reported votes of the respondents slightly favored Clinton - as they should because she did get about 2 % more. This rules out the idea that this was just a bad sample. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/03/08/good-news-for-donald-trump-your-poll-numbers-are-now-better-than-hillary-clintons/?utm_term=.dd941544d8e0

After a nasty election, it is not surprising that the Clinton numbers fell. Nor is it surprising his rose --as stated this always happens to the winner and it happened less with Trump than prior Presidents. What is surprising is that the Democratic Party and Republican Party both have terrible numbers and - if anything - ours are worse. Those numbers are troubling and suggest the trouble that we are currently in. We no longer have a natural figurehead. It is normal that Obama, like other ex Presidents, stay out of view. Clinton is clearly not the leader we need. I hope that various Democrats become more prominent - as they naturally move to the forefront.

We need to be very supportive of Democrats - at all levels. We also need to find ways to speak of our values in contrast to those of the Republicans. To some degree, this will be a war of ideas and values. Obviously, I think ours are better.