national news

Trump standing improves, but with others’ support

I hear that Donald John Trump’s standing among Americans is improving.

His job approval rating is now just less than 42 percent, according to RealClearPolitics’ average of polls; Rasmussen puts the president’s approval 49 percent, with 49 percent disapproving of his job performance.

The president is touting the Rasmussen survey as evidence that, by golly, he has won over the public’s well-chronicled skepticism of the job he is doing.

Pardon me, Mr. President. This survey doesn’t include yours truly’s feelings about his ability to lead the nation.

I haven’t yet taken part in a public opinion survey about the president’s job performance. No one has called me to ask me how I feel about Donald Trump’s standing. That’s fine. I am able to express myself here, in this venue, using this platform from which I can bellow my own bias.

I want it known that you likely can count me as a permanent member of the “Never Trump Movement.” What might change my mind? That requires some thought.

  • One factor might be if the special counsel, Robert Mueller, concludes that Donald Trump’s campaign did not collude with the Russians. Mueller also might have to declare that Trump sought to alert the FBI in real time as the Russians were hacking into the electoral system, but that the FBI laughed at him. Then again, if those are the findings, why wouldn’t Trump reveal it himself?
  • Another might be that he can release his tax returns and we would learn that he really is as rich as he boasted about and that he really didn’t have any business interests in Russia. Again, I wonder: Why hasn’t he revealed all of that already?
  • Yet another might be that Trump secretly has been studying hard about the Constitution and has wrapped himself up in the works of the Founding Fathers, that he has read the works of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.

Do I seriously expect any of those fantasies to come true? Of course not! Thus, I remain committed to opposing the president, who I still consider to be uniquely unqualified to occupy the office to which he was elected.