Thanks to the incompetence of Donald Trump, opposition to his administration is far beyond what I might have hoped for a month ago. While it took five years to have massive opposition to George W. Bush, we are seeing it in the first two weeks under Trump. We are seeing demonstrations as big as, or in the case of the first weekend, larger than, were seen during the Vietnam war. The number of people who want to see Trump impeached has reached 40 percent, up from 35 percent a week ago. Public Policy Polling provides these results:
Less than 2 weeks into Donald Trump’s tenure as President, 40% of voters already want to impeach him. That’s up from 35% of voters who wanted to impeach him a week ago. Only 48% of voters say that they would be opposed to Trump’s impeachment.
Beyond a significant percentage of voters already thinking that Trump should be removed from office, it hasn’t taken long for voters to miss the good old days of Barack Obama…52% say they’d rather Obama was President, to only 43% who are glad Trump is.
Why so much unhappiness with Trump? Voters think basically everything he’s doing is wrong:
-Overall voters are pretty evenly split on Trump’s executive order on immigration from last week, with 47% supporting it to 49% who are opposed. But when you get beyond the overall package, the pieces of the executive order become more clearly unpopular. 52% of voters think that the order was intended to be a Muslim ban, to only 41% who don’t think that was the intent. And the idea of a Muslim ban is extremely unpopular with the American people- only 26% are in favor of it, to 65% who are against it. When it comes to barring people from certain countries from entering the United States, even when those people have already secured a Visa, just 39% of voters are supportive to 53% who are against it. And just 43% of voters support the United States indefinitely suspending accepting Syrian refugees, with 48% opposed to that. Finally voters see a basic competence issue with Trump’s handling of the executive order- only 39% of voters think it was well executed, to 55% who believe it was poorly executed…
In addition, Steve Bannon is highly unpopular: “19% of voters see Bannon favorably, to 40% who have a negative opinion of him.” Few believe his claims of vote fraud. A majority opposes the wall, which was the centerpiece of his campaign: “Only 40% of voters are in support of building the wall if American taxpayers have to front the cost for it, to 54% who are opposed.”
Even his campaign promise to repeal Obamacare has become unpopular: “46% of voters now say they support it to just 41% who are opposed. And only 33% of voters think the best course of action is for Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act and start over, to 62% who think it would be better to keep it and fix the parts that need fixing.” Congressional Republicans are also finding it to be difficult to abolish the Affordable Care Act, and are now talking about fixing Obamacare rather than repealing it.
Trump is also losing his battles, including with the media. Despite his attacks on CNN, “By a 50/42 spread voters say CNN has more credibility than Trump.” Similarly, The Washington Post and The New York Times have more credibility than Trump in this poll.
While Donald Trump is highly unpopular and his policies are failing, he may have unintentionally succeeded at one thing. He has brought the country together, even if in opposition to him, as is seen in the highly publicized photo above.
