Public Says Trump Not Paying Enough Attention To The Most Important Problems

The chart above reflects the results of the CNN / SSRS Poll -- done between July 23rd and 27th of a nationwide sample of 1,225 adults, with a 3.2 point margin of error. 

The Trump Train Is Losing Steam And Slowing Down

For the first few months of his second term, Trump looked unstoppable. But as the problems continue to mount for his administration, that is no longer true. Here's how Heather Digby Parton puts it at Salon.com:

Like the president himself, the Trump train, which looked like high-speed rail during the first few months of his second term, is slowing down. And it’s a much more rickety machine than it first appeared.

Over the past few weeks the Republicans have lost the argument — if not the process — on the government shutdown. Despite the best efforts of Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., Congress voted almost unanimously for the Justice Department to release the Epstein files. Trump failed to persuade the Senate to eliminate the filibuster and his “health care plan” has been rejected by the House’s MAGA caucus. Now, a contingent of congressional Republicans are rebelling against his proposed sell-out to Russia and his staunch ally, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., defied him and then announced her resignation, prompting whispers that she’s just the first of many House Republicans who are considering leaving Congress before the 2026 midterms — and possibly even prompting a shift in the majority. 

Despite his extravagant campaign promises, Trump’s economy is still in the doldrums, largely because he choked off the crisp recovery that was underway when he took office with his tariff agenda. His anti-immigrant policies, Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and warmongering in the Caribbean are cruel; his corruption is flagrant and his obsession with renovating and decorating the White House is downright bizarre. His personal vengeance project is an embarrassment to all involved. 

For months, the media was mesmerized by Trump’s theatricality. Democrats in Washington, obsessed as they were with their compulsive navel gazing, were paralyzed. But that seems to be over now — and it’s largely due to ordinary Americans seeing the threats posed by Trump more clearly than the party’s leadership and successfully pushing back. 

The latest polling breaks down along typical lines, with Republicans mostly backing Trump and Democrats pretty much unanimously rejecting him. But instead of the similar breakdown you usually find among Independents, who generally lean 50-50, a substantial majority of them are now siding with the Democrats. A recent CBS/YouGov poll found that a whopping 76% disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy, while 24% approve. 

Those numbers reflect a very serious erosion in support for Trump and Republicans, and it’s doubtless contributed to his approval rating sinking below 40%. This decline has occurred despite a massive propaganda effort by the White House to present the president’s first year as successful on every front — including this week’s ludicrous claim that he has the highest poll numbers of his career. He is actually at the weakest point in his presidency.

Americans are rejecting Trump’s policies across the board. He’s drastically underwateron the economy, immigration, inflation and trade, all supposedly his strong suits, and people are blaming him — and not former President Joe Biden — for all of it. While most Republicans love the cruel ICE raids in Democratic-led cities, large majorities of Democrats and Independents disapprove, and it’s personal to many of them. Most people, too, are well aware that Trump is using law enforcement to target his political enemies. . . .

Finally, there were the overwhelming victories of Democrats in the recent elections. In a normal political environment, off-year elections have limited value in predicting the following year’s midterms. But this year, in this abnormal time, something interesting happened.  Young people and Latinos who had voted for Trump in 2024 swung back to Democrats in droves, from the big marquee races to local school boards. 

As The Government Reopens 5 Stubborn Realities Greet Republicans

The following is just a small part of an excellent post by Jennifer Rubin in The Contrarian:3. 

As the government reopens, five stubborn realities greet the Republicans, less than 10 months into Donald Trump’s shambolic presidency:

1. The Jeffrey Epstein scandal has exploded with incriminating new emails that undermine Trump’s feigned ignorance about the pedophile ring and put Attorney General Pam Bondi in extreme jeopardy.

2. The job market has crumbled.

3. The affordability crisis is getting worse, with health insurance costs set to skyrocket absent a MAGA humiliating about-face.

4. The rich and Trump-connected are making out like bandits.

5. The increasingly decrepit president couldn’t care less about Americans. (In fact, he’s willing to maximize their pain).

The ramifications for this political landscape and the battle to recapture our democracy are profound. . . .

While Rome burns, Nero Trump fiddles and naps, deteriorating physically and mentally before our eyes. He shamelessly reiterates he does not give a damn about the American people. He denies there is an affordability crisis, wants to strangle the Affordable Care Act (with no plausible alternative), flaunts his disgusting taste(desecrating the people’s White House) and flagrant corruption pardons high-flying white collar swindlers and plans to plunder $230M from the Treasury. He not only does not know how to help Americans; he does not want to. He only helps himself.

After gleefully inflicting pain on the American people, MAGA Republicans are stuck defending their Epstein coverup and a politically wounded president, a rotten economy, a self-inflicted affordability crisis, their determination to jack up healthcare premiums, a reverse Robin Hood scheme that takes from working people to enrich the mega-wealthy, and defense of a money grubbing, corrupt, low-functioning president. Whatever Democrats’ Senate leadership difficulties, they have plenty of time before the midterms to hang all of that around Republicans’ necks.

Women Will Have No Problems If Trump's Elected (Satire)

 

Alexandra Petri responds to Trump's promise to solve all women's problems with this delicious bit of satire in The Washington Post:

It is so much nicer being a woman, now that Donald Trump is in charge!

You barely remember the Biden times at all, except in nightmares. In the dreams, regular eggs cost as much as Fabergé eggs. All the food at the grocery store is too expensive — if you made it to the store at all without being killed, sometimes twice. Also you were always thinking about abortion.

But then you wake up all the way and Donald Trump is protecting you and you are not thinking about abortion.

Mostly you feel wonderful all the time, happy and confident and not depressed because all that has been fixed. Every single problem the country had! Poof! And all you had to do was stop thinking about abortion.

Now, Donald Trump is back and you are not thinking about anything. All your anxieties are gone, now that men are handling all the country’s problems. It would have been a mistake to put a woman in charge! Fortunately, that did not happen. Fortunately, Donald Trump is guarding you. You are guarded! You are not worrying your pretty little head. Donald Trump is protecting you, just like the Bible said should happen. It did not mention him by name, but that was implied.

It was so tough in the before times, when you had to act as though you were a person. It was exhausting, like a dog standing on its hind legs all day. Of course, you weren’t a person, not really, and it is so much nicer to get to stop pretending. Much more restful this way. You are not thinking about abortion. Abortion is back in the hands of those who know best. The choice was the exhausting part; now, you get to be a blessed vessel and raise up as many children as they have decided is best. It is much nicer now.

Before, you thought abortion might even be a reason to vote. You voted! You could laugh, or cry, when you think about it. You aren’t sure which. Donald Trump will know.

Thank God the national nightmare of forcing you to make choices — as though your thoughts and desires mattered — is at an end. You wake up and smile at the picture of your patron saint, Donald Trump. You go to the market (JD Vance is in charge of eggs now; he has been lecturing the hens about the need to fertilize more of them) and buy one dozen. They cost exactly the right amount. You are not thinking about abortion.

Nothing is the matter here. You are so much more relaxed now that the country has no more problems. Sometimes, you don’t think that all of them were problems, but the thought is quick to vanish. You don’t think about abortion. How could you think about abortion? There is no abortion here. It is with the states where it belongs. It isn’t where you are. It’s not important. You’re not important. Donald Trump is protecting you.

The Four Ways The Media Is Quietly Helping Donald Trump

Robert Reich details the four ways the mainstream media is helping Donald Trump: 

The mainstream media is helping Trump and his authoritarian allies in four ways. 

First, it’s drawing a false equivalence between Trump and Biden — claiming that Biden’s political handicap is his age, while Trump’s corresponding handicap is his criminal indictments.

Rubbish. Trump is almost as old as Biden, and Trump’s public remarks and posts are becoming ever more unhinged — suggesting that advancing age may be a bigger problem for Trump than for Biden.

Why isn’t the mainstream media reporting on Trump’s increasing senescence?

Secondly, every time the mainstream media reports on another move by Trump and his Republican allies toward neofascism, it tries to balance its coverage by pointing out some fault in the Democratic Party (such as the ongoing federal corruption and bribery case against Senator Bob Menendez).

The net effect is for readers to assume all politics is rotten. A recent Washington Post article was headlined, “In a swing Wisconsin county, everyone is tired of politics.”

Voters who are turned off by politics are less aware of Biden’s accomplishments — and the media is hardly reporting on them. 

One person interviewed by the Post admitted, “I can’t really speak to anything [Biden] has done because I’ve tuned it out, like a lot of people have. We’re so tired of the us-against-them politics.”

As if the “us-against-them politics” is the fault of Democrats as much as it is Trump Republicans. In fact, Trump’s GOP is the party of dysfunctional politics.

Which brings us to the third way the mainstream media is quietly helping Trump. It makes it seem as if the dysfunction in Washington is coming from both parties. 

“How do Americans feel about politics?” The New York Times asked recently, answering in the same headline: “‘Disgust isn’t a strong enough word.’”

What the Times failed to report is that much of the GOP no longer accepts the rule of law, or the norms of liberal democracy, or the legitimacy of the opposing party, or the premise that governing requires negotiation and compromise.

Yesterday, the Times attributed the coming wave of departing lawmakers across both chambers and parties to the “breathtaking dysfunction on Capitol Hill,” without telling readers that the dysfunction is entirely due to the Republican Party.

Finally, blaming both sides for this chaos plays into Trump’s and his allies’ goal of wanting Americans to believe the nation has become ungovernable, so it needs a strongman. 

The worse things seem, the more convincing is Trump’s case for an authoritarian like him to take over. “I’d get it done in one day.” “I am your voice.” “Leave it all to me.”

Focusing on government dysfunction ignores Biden’s steady hand. This makes America more likely to fall into Trump’s and his allies’ neofascist hands.

As we head into the critical election year of 2024, the mainstream media must adapt to a new political reality: The contest is no longer between Democrats who want more government and Republicans who want less. It is between democracy and fascism.

Despite The Woes, The World Is Better Than It Was

This post is by Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner:

Ours is not an age of tranquility. Far from it. 

Myriad crises ricochet across our newsfeeds and disturb our conscience. Some are immediate and others endemic. Wherever we seem to turn, there are pain, danger, and disorientation. 

Edifices we once turned to for stability — our democratic governance, a largely peaceful world order, basic notions of truth — are under great strain, to the point of buckling. Will they ultimately crumble? And if they do, what waves of chaos and heartbreak will they unleash?

To tally all that is wrong is to produce a catalog of woe debilitating in its breadth, depth, and scope. In addition to all that ails us in the broader world, many of you undoubtedly can add personal afflictions and ones that strike your family and friends. These include struggles of health, financial stability, loneliness, and hopelessness. 

Can we find any solace in the fact that most eras of any meaningful duration encompass injustices and instability? Can we recognize that even as we face immense challenges, we  have made great strides toward addressing calamities our ancestors took as inevitable — such as childhood diseases (thank you, vaccines), workplace safety (thank you, labor movement), and racial justice (thank you, Civil Rights Movement)? There remains much work to be done, and there has been recent backsliding, but on the whole, the world is better than it was. 

It is important to try to see our present time in a wider arc of history. It can remind us that moments of peril do get resolved. But we also can see that the cost of resolution can be high and measured in human suffering. 

One hope in creating this Steady community is that we can come together and share our fears and pain, that we can say, “This is not okay” and “We are angry and hurting.” In processing the news, all too often the facts printed on the page become blurred by the tears in our eyes. We shake our heads in exasperation at the capacity of our species to be heartless and to do evil. We breathe deeply, aching for people in a distant place we will never visit but whom we recognize because of our common bonds as humans. 

All these emotions are valid, natural, and warranted. They spring from the same well that can also provide a salve for our fervid thoughts. We hurt because we care and because we desperately want a world that hurts less. While much of what is taking place is beyond our control, that doesn’t mean we are helpless. 

In times of struggle, action provides a path forward. Helping others. Fighting for democracy. Creating communities of caring. Even just calling a friend who could use a check-in. 

This is a time of swirling emotions. They churn within us. They must be recognized and respected. But we should also remember that we are not alone with these fears and sadnesses. And many in this world feel them far more acutely. It is incumbent on us as fellow human beings to find a way to keep pushing forward. To lift each other up. To say, “This is wrong,” and then turn that into a rallying cry for change.

 

It is remarkable to remember how short the history of the United States really is. Two hundred forty-seven years may seem like a lot until you realize that’s just about three lifetimes of 80 years. And for some of us, 80 years is already in the rearview mirror. Think about what this nation was like at its founding and what it is now. 

We are in a land that embraces and adapts to change, and we are a nation of change-makers. We do not intend to minimize the struggles we face. But we can find ways and leaders to do the hard work of progress for the betterment of humanity.

Most Voters See Police Violence As A Problem

 The charts above are from the Politico / Morning Consult Poll -- done between January 27th and 29th of a nationwide sample of 1,977 registered voters, with a 2 point margin of error.

Putin's Troubles Grow - In Ukraine And Russia

 

Zeesham Aleem talks about Putin's growing problems at MSNBC.com:

Flights out of Russia are selling out, despite skyrocketing prices, after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced he'll be mobilizing hundreds of thousands of additional troops for his war on Ukraine. That rush to get out of Russia is likely a foreshadowing of the growing domestic discontent Putin will have to reckon with as his troubled war effort becomes more costly.

Wednesday marked a new phase of Putin's imperialistic project. Among other things, his new policies indefinitely extend the contracts of soldiers who signed up for only several months of service and call up around 300,000 military reservists for the war. The newly mobilized will be limited to people with experience as professional soldiers. But it immediately signaled a couple things about the changing nature of the war.

First, it’s an admission that Russia's military has been failing to execute its objectives against a far smaller country. The limited resources allocated for Putin's “special operation” in Ukraine — during which Russian forces were kept at roughly “peacetime” levels — have proven insufficient. There's now no concealing Moscow's desperation for more manpower in the wake of poor military performance and huge casualty rates.

Second, it signals that a significantly larger swath of society is going to be affected by the war. Recruits who survived their initial contracts appear to be locked into a dangerous war indefinitely, and a new, sizable set of soldiers will be required to take up arms. The families and communities of these soldiers will be at risk of losing them. And surely many civilian Russian men are wondering whether they’re next — that is, whether the pool of men mobilized could grow larger or whether a nationwide draft could be instituted. Unconfirmed rumors are floating around Russian social media that men 18 to 65 aren’t being allowed to leave the country. Regardless of their veracity, that these ideas are swirling at all is a sign of how popular consciousness is shifting in relation to the war.

Putin must weigh a simple bit of math as he doubles down: The greater the number of soldiers who have to mobilize for the war, the less abstract the war becomes. "The period of passive, contemplative heroism, with which the Russian political regime satisfied the self-respect of citizens, is over,” Aleksandr Baunov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote on Telegram, according to The New York Times. “Now they will be required to make sacrifices.”

One can’t know for certain what’s spurring the wave of departures that’s causing flights leaving Russia to sell out. It could be able-bodied men worried about being placed on the front lines of a failing war. It could be people who morally and ideologically oppose the war or anticipate heightened repression in response to antiwar dissent. (Opposition politicians are already calling for more protests; they will almost certainly face harsh crackdowns.) It could be people frightened by Putin’s stern proclamation that he wasn’t bluffingwhen he warned the West that he was willing to use his nuclear arsenal to protect what he calls his territory. It could be people concerned that the Russian economy or their business sectors could take even harder hits from international sanctions as Putin rattles sabers and doubles down on the war.

But whatever the reason or reasons, it’s reasonable to guess that many of the departures — which come after the hundreds of thousands of departures over the course of the war so far — involve wanting to avoid entanglement in the many kinds of suffering tied to war. Of course, not all those who fear or oppose the war will leave or can afford to leave. Many could stay and mobilize against Putin. And here we see Putin’s dilemma. He fears losing face internationally and domestically through a failed operation in Ukraine. But the more Russian blood he causes to be spilled in his attempt to extract some kind of victory over Ukraine, the more enemies he’s likely to generate within his own country.