President Donald Trump has continued to be slammed by an endless series of horrific polls. Surveys suggest that voters are increasingly hostile toward the president, feel worse off financially as a result of his policies, and would prefer almost anyone else in charge.
Such figures, however, are not the fault of an administration reaping the results of chaotic policy pursuits, but are instead because the president himself has just set the bar too damn high.
That is according to Fox News contributor Kaylee McGhee White, who argued the logically circuitous point on The Five.
“We hear a lot about how Trump’s approval ratings are cratering and blah blah blah,” White told co-host and Washington Times opinion editor Charles Hurt.
“I mean, look, yes, they’re down from where they were earlier in the year; that’s to be expected. But I think in some ways Trump is a victim of his own success in that voters expect a lot from him because they know that he can deliver on it.”
In evidence of her claim, White pointed to “the latest poll,” showing Trump’s 87 percent approval rating among Republican voters, as the figures that really matter.
The 26-year-old editor-in-chief of the right-wing Independent Women’s Features pointed to Trump’s key “achievements” over the past year—including the bombing of Iran, the push against illegal immigration, and preventing trans women from participating in public life—arguing that “80 to 90 percent of Americans” agree with Trump on those issues, making other ones redundant.
The polling she cites is the analysis of CNN’s Margin of Error host, Harry Enten, from Nov. 25.
Enten’s actual latest polling on Trump suggests he has been “underwater for 281 days in a row” and is negative on all key issues, including immigration, the economy, and trade.
“The American people don’t like what Trump is doing and they haven’t liked what Trump is doing for a long period of time,” Enten said last week.
Trump himself has appeared increasingly desperate to convince voters that their lived experience of wages not keeping pace with rising costs is not the case.
In an address to the nation on Dec. 18, Trump rolled out dozens of false claims on the price of gasoline, unemployment figures, and the affordability crisis.
“Eleven months ago, I inherited a mess and I’m fixing it,” the 79-year-old billionaire said.
The focus on polling and the heightened positive spin comes as the midterm elections draw nearer, which Trump’s own Republican National Committee chair describes as a “pending, looming disaster.”
That said, according to White, Democratic focus on Trump’s abysmal polling numbers is simply “a lot of cope over the fact that they don’t really have a vision, they don’t have a next-generation leader who’s gonna step in and take the place.”
