Popularity and results
LARRY ANDERSON
Larry Anderson
A bit has been made by Trump’s detractors of the president’s lack of glowing polls by which they themselves draw meaning, at least until the last election when surprising results set that boat adrift.
While Barack Obama was personally popular compared to some presidents, his policies were not. On the other hand, Donald Trump, a Washington outsider as advertised, isn’t particularly well-liked, but his policies are quietly popular even beyond the electoral numbers.
I use the phrase “quietly popular” because most of the media is selling administrative failure as a means of salving liberal wounds. Mentioning success would provide tacit support for Trump and all those whose boats he is busy lifting.
Conservatives aren’t especially noisy in their support; they aren’t prone to tedious demonstrations or calling opponents “scumbags” as did liberal Congresswoman Maxine Waters recently. Conservatives don’t fall back on tried-and-true screaming points such as racism, sexism and xenophobia, liberal loves one and all.
In the February 17 issue of USA Today, writer/analyst Charlotte Allen got to the truth about Donald Trump’s first few weeks in office. Not surprisingly, his progress conflicts with the conclusions of liberal politicians and big media.
Here are some of the things Trump has gotten done as pointed out by Allen, using her words:
Ordered a wall along the Mexican border and actually started enforcing immigration laws.
Revoked federal funding for so-called sanctuary cities that offer illegal immigrants charged with crimes refuge from deportation.
Squelched for good the job killing, secretly negotiated Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership.
Asked the State Department and the Army Corp of Engineers for a quick approval of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines that reduce dependency on foreign oil.
Froze the metastasizing tumor of federal bureaucracies.
Allen pointed out that the above points and other things Trump has accomplished in a short time are popular with registered voters, not the horror story presented by his jabbering enemies.
Cutting federal financial support of sanctuary cities is approved by 55 percent while only 38 percent oppose it.
The border wall has 43 percent approval compared to 42 percent disapproval.
Ending the Trans-Pacific Trade deal enjoys 47 percent approval to 37 percent disapproval.
These are the examples provided by Allen’s article. The percentages were gathered by Politico, not Donald Trump with an ax to grind.
No more U.S. aid to international health organizations that perform abortions has 47 percent approval compared to 42 percent disapproval.
Relaxing or eliminating Obamacare taxes and regulations was approved by 49 percent with 41 percent disapproving.
Politico found 55 percent of registered voters approved of Trump’s travel ban. Reuters reported 49 percent approval with 41 percent disapproving.
Those aren’t the most important points, however. Said Allen, “The point is Trump has managed to do something that no U.S. president, even Reagan, has been able to do in recent decades: bring to a screeching halt…the reign of a globalist, virtue-signaling elite that has gained control of every social and cultural institution, the political establishment (including many Republicans), the news media, the universities, the entertainment industry, even corporations–and then steamrolled his agenda over ordinary Americans whether they liked it or not.
“…until Inauguration Day, Americans just had to live with the fact that immigration laws would be routinely flouted, that floods of self-proclaimed “refugees” would transform their country into another jihadi-infested Germany, that trade pacts benefiting Wall Street and Silicon Valley but not U.S. workers would be shoved down our throats, that their daughters would be forced to share school restrooms with biological males…that they’d be one Supreme Court justice away from having their guns confiscated, and that they’d be endlessly derided as haters and homophobes or deplorables or pitiable misfits, who couldn’t keep up with economic and social changes, if they declined to go along with what their betters demanded.
“Trump has stood in front of the steamroller and begun to roll it back.”
There. I couldn’t have said it better.
Thank you, Charlotte Allen, for pointing out what could be so easily missed if one only paid attention to electronic media. Thanks too to the individual who brought this salient analysis to my attention.
And thank you, Donald Trump, for not being a politician of the usual order, for not being politically correct, and for being a leader driven by the peculiar–now quietly popular–notion of putting America first.
Larry W. Anderson is a retired educator, author and lifelong Northwest Missourian.
