Trump’s Shutdown Is Hurting Trump’s Approval Rating

Anyone arguing that the Democrats are to blame for this shutdown is an unserious thinker. We are not in the new congress yet, so Republicans still control both branches of the legislature, as well as the executive branch (and the Supreme Court to boot). This is their show, and there is no show right now, so it’s their fault that there is no show. Period. Trump’s proposed monument to racism on our southern border is not politically popular, and it’s a fact that the biggest problem he faces in securing its funding comes from the GOP. He doesn’t have the votes.

But that hasn’t stopped him from blaming the Democrats for this government shutdown. As I write this, the maniac is yelling at most likely this morning’s Fox & Friends through Twitter.

The Democrats OBSTRUCTION of the desperately needed Wall, where they almost all recently agreed it should be built, is exceeded only by their OBSTRUCTION of 350 great people wanting & expecting to come into Government after being delayed for more than two years, a U.S. record!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 27, 2018

The reason the DACA for Wall deal didn’t get done was that a ridiculous court decision from the 9th Circuit allowed DACA to remain, thereby setting up a Supreme Court case. After ruling, Dems dropped deal – and that’s where we are today, Democrat obstruction of the needed Wall.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 27, 2018

Spoiler: most people aren’t buying this nonsense. Per Vox:

President Donald Trump is getting blamed for the government shutdown, a new poll shows.

The president’s popularity has dropped below 40 percent amid what is now a six-day partial government shutdown over funding for Trump’s southern border wall, according to a poll from Morning Consult conducted from December 21 to 23. The last time Trump’s approval rating was this low was when he refused to condemn neo-Nazis after the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017.

Only 39 percent of registered voters approve of the president’s job performance during this shutdown, while 56 percent disapprove. However, Trump’s approval rating is split on party lines. Among Republicans, 80 percent approve of Trump; 90 percent of Democrats and 57 percent of independents disapprove of his performance, according to the survey of nearly 2,000 registered voters. Another poll from HuffPost and YouGov found only 36 percent of Americans approved of Trump’s handling of the government shutdown.

That 80% figure with Republicans may sound good, but it’s actually disastrous. Every president should be above 90% with their party, if they aren’t, something’s wrong.

To answer the obvious question of: well, what “bad” intra-party figure is actually significant? I think we have a pretty good example to pull from recent history.

Richard Nixon got impeached when his support was hovering around 50% in the Republican Party. If you’re wondering if the GOP will ever stand up to Trump, that’s the best barometer we have. As of right now, there’s no shot they’ll turn on him. They’ll build a wall around the entire country before they even allow an impeachment vote to reach the Senate floor.

But…

Give Trump a huge stock market crash (check), combine it with possible 2008-esque liquidity issues with the banks (wtf Steve Mnuchin???), and Trump could hit that 50% figure sooner than any of us cynics ever thought. This is another area where we can cite recent history, given how the 2008 economic crisis affected George W. Bush’s approval ratings. Hell, Fox & Friends is even beginning to chide him these days. Trump is simply not popular, and he certainly is getting less so by the day.

Jacob Weindling is a staff writer for Paste politics. Follow him on Twitter at @Jakeweindling.