Steamroll the Trumpkins
Given my most recent post, I presume that it will only be a matter of time before someone asks me “how do we get the Trumpkins to abandon Donald Trump, at long last?”
My response: Don’t bother trying to convert the Trumpkins. Just beat and steamroll them without any semblance of pity.
In the event that a reminder is needed–and it is certainly needed for Trump, who continues to lyingly insist that his popular vote loss was due to “3–5 million illegal votes,” and for the Trumpkins who are dumb enough to believe such garbage–Donald Trump did not, in fact, win the popular vote. Not even close. He only won 46.1% of the popular vote, and nearly 3 million votes less than Hillary Clinton. When you count other candidates, you see that Trump lost the popular vote by nearly 11 million votes. 53.9% of the populace voted against him. Donald Trump is–alas–the legitimately elected president of the United States, but this is a pathetic popular vote showing. From these results alone, we see that Cheeto Caligula does not have a mandate.
That lack of a popular mandate becomes even more clear when one sees that Trump’s approval ratings are terrible:
It admittedly seems odd to ask Americans to evaluate the performance of a new president a few days after he took office. It’s like getting a performance review on your first week at a new job: Sure, you can do it, but it’s probably not going to really lay good groundwork for what to expect.
Interestingly, though, voters are generally willing to give incoming presidents good marks in that regard. The pattern over the course of Gallup’s history of tracking presidential approval has been that the incoming president’s first approval rating is higher than the outgoing president’s last one.
Excluding transitions that occurred due to resignation or death, there have been three times when a new president has had lower initial ratings than the outgoing one: When George H.W. Bush replaced the very-popular Ronald Reagan in 1989, when Bush’s son replaced Bill Clinton in 2001 — and in 2017. Every other time, the new guy seemingly got more of the benefit of the doubt.
Trump’s approval rating is lower than any prior new president. Remarkably, more people have a negative opinion of him than any other new president in his first job evaluation.
More:
President Donald Trump’s first job-approval rating is in, and it is the lowest an incoming president has ever received.
Only 45% of Americans approve of Trump’s job performance over the first three days of his presidency, according to a Gallup survey released Monday. It’s the first time a president has received an initial approval rating under 50% in the history of the poll, which dates back to Dwight Eisenhower’s first term in 1953.
Another 45% of Americans disapproved of Trump’s performance — also the highest such initial rating in the poll’s history. The remaining 10% had not yet formed an opinion.
There are, of course, other surveys that show Trump’s numbers to be even worse. Given the degree to which Americans hate Trump–and who can blame them?–and given his lousy popular vote performance, it is more than a little surprising that politicians do not decide to simply relegate Trump to the sidelines. They have less to fear from him than they think they do. Yes, Trump tweets. Yes, his methods are unorthodox and unconventional. Yes, in becoming the Republican nominee, and in becoming president, Trump has defied conventional wisdom. But he cannot do it forever, and facts and numbers still mean something; Trump’s desperate and lame efforts to convince us otherwise notwithstanding. Trump is not popular. Thanks to his administration–which again, has been in office for less than a week–Americans are angry, fearful, outraged, sickened and disgusted by his presidency. And they are angry, fearful, outraged, sickened and disgusted in record numbers, given that Trump should be enjoying a political honeymoon right now. Imagine what happens when the honeymoon–such as it is–wears off.
This means, in opposing Trump, we should not worry about the sway he has over Americans. It is limited, to say the least, despite Trump’s epic trainwreck of a personality, and the fact that the Electoral College gave him the opportunity to infest the White House with his noxious presence. We also should not worry about trying to convert the Trumpkins. They cannot be reasoned with in debating the smallest, most obvious things, so one can assume that they won’t be open-minded or rational about more important issues. Furthermore, they are not numerous enough to matter. What matters is for anti-Trump/pro-America forces to be even more motivated than the pro-Trump non-patriots, and given last week’s Women’s March, it is easy to see that anti-Trump/pro-America forces are indeed angry and fired up. The battle against Trump is nowhere close to being won, but our side has the numbers and the passion.
So, let’s stop with the handwringing over how we can convert the Trumpkins, or how we can get them to see reason. If they want to parley like rational human beings, then I will welcome that, and I will reconsider my argument in this post. Until then, they should be treated like any other political opponent: They should be beaten and beaten soundly, especially given the existential threat that they and their narcissistic, childish, mouth-breathing carnival barker-in-chief pose to the United States. Under normal circumstances, I am happy to echo the prophet Isaiah and to tell my political opponents that I am willing to reason together with them. But I have my limits. You should have limits too.
There is no reasoning with Trumpkins. They are cheering on Trump’s depredations, as their dishonorable and despicable political champion tries to change and pervert the America we know and love. This means political war. It’s time for those who resist Trump to go out and win it.
Originally published at pejmanyousefzadeh.net on January 26, 2017.
