Trump approval down to 33%, Republican Support is starting to crumble.

[Breccia]

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/901044603561922560

You have to give him some credit...or maybe Kelly...he's gone from "I AM THE BEST EVAH" to the moire loopholey "few, if any, are better".

Granted, he's still wrong, but at least his lies are less blatant.

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A lot of people were talking about "Trump's Katrina" after he got elected. Some were more literal than others, as it took Trump till June to put someone at the head of FEMA (there is no head of DHS yet), and he's been trying to cut CDC funds as well.

But I think this is a good time for this Houston Chronicle article which is, of course, directly in the path of Harvey. The article's only partly about the disaster: it's mostly about the denial people use when they have made a mistake.

Krugman: What will Trump's 'Katrina moment' look like?

The 100-day reviews are in, and they're terrible. The health care faceplants just keep coming; the administration's tax "plan" offers less detail than most supermarket receipts; Trump has wimped out on his promises to get aggressive on foreign trade. The gap between big boasts and tiny achievements has never been wider.

Yet there have, by my count, been seven thousand news articles - OK, it's a rough estimate - about how Trump supporters are standing by their man, are angry at those meanies in the news media, and would gladly vote for him all over again. What's going on?

The answer, I'd suggest, lies buried in the details of the latest report on gross domestic product. No, really.

For the past few months, economists who track short-term developments have been noting a peculiar divergence between "soft" and "hard" data. Soft data are things like surveys of consumer and business confidence; hard data are things like actual retail sales. Normally these data tell similar stories (which is why the soft data are useful as a sort of early warning system for the coming hard data.) Since the 2016 election, however, the two kinds of data have diverged, with reported confidence surging - and, yes, a bump in stocks - but no real sign of a pickup in economic activity.

The funny thing about that confidence surge, however, was that it was very much along partisan lines - a sharp decline among Democrats, but a simply huge rise among Republicans. This raises the obvious question: Were those reporting a huge increase in optimism really feeling that much better about their economic prospects, or were they simply using the survey as an opportunity to affirm the rightness of their vote?

Well, if consumers really are feeling super-confident, they're not acting on those feelings. The first-quarter GDP report, showing growth slowing to a crawl, wasn't as bad as it looks: Technical issues involving inventories and seasonal adjustment (you don't want to know) mean that underlying growth was probably OK, though not great. But consumer spending was definitely sluggish.

The evidence, in other words, suggests that when Trump voters say they're highly confident, it's more a declaration of their political identity than an indication of what they're going to do, or even, maybe, what they really believe.

May I suggest that focus groups and polls of Trump voters are picking up something similar?

One basic principle I've learned in my years at The Times is that almost nobody ever admits being wrong about anything - and the wronger they were, the less willing they are to concede error. For example, when Bloomberg surveyed a group of economists who had predicted that Ben Bernanke's policies would cause runaway inflation, they literally couldn't find a single person willing to admit, after years of low inflation, having been mistaken.

Now think about what it means to have voted for Trump. The news media spent much of the campaign indulging in an orgy of false equivalence; nonetheless, most voters probably got the message that the political/media establishment considered Trump ignorant and temperamentally unqualified to be president. So the Trump vote had a strong element of: "Ha! You elites think you're so smart? We'll show you!"

Now, sure enough, it turns out that Trump is ignorant and temperamentally unqualified to be president. But if you think his supporters will accept this reality any time soon, you must not know much about human nature. In a perverse way, Trump's sheer awfulness offers him some political protection: His supporters aren't ready, at least so far, to admit that they made that big a mistake.

Also, to be fair, so far Trumpism hasn't had much effect on daily life. In fact, Trump's biggest fails have involved what hasn't happened, not what has. So it's still fairly easy for those so inclined to dismiss the bad reports as media bias.

Sooner or later, however, this levee is going to break.

I chose that metaphor advisedly. I'm old enough to remember when George W. Bush was wildly popular - and while his numbers gradually deflated from their post 9/11 high, it was a slow process. What really pushed his former supporters to reconsider, as I perceived it - and this perception is borne out by polling - was the Katrina debacle, in which everyone could see the Bush administration's callousness and incompetence playing out live on TV.

What will Trump's Katrina moment look like? Will it be the collapse of health insurance due to administration sabotage? A recession this White House has no idea how to handle? A natural disaster or public health crisis? One way or another, it's coming.

Oh, and one more note: By 2006, a majority of those polled claimed to have voted for John Kerry in 2004. It will be interesting, a couple of years from now, to see how many people say they voted for Donald Trump.

Bolded for emphasis. Stay safe, Houston.

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FOX News isn't going to let Breitbart have all the fun taking shots at Trump.

Moderate Republicans begin speculating about 2020 primary challenger to Trump

[Adam Jensen]

Back when the President was an adorable idiot instead of a repulsive idiot.

When was that? Before he took lead of the Birther idiocy? Maybe even as far back as the 1980s?

[Lothar from accounting]

When was that? Before he took lead of the Birther idiocy? Maybe even as far back as the 1980s?

Bush II: Iraq Boogaloo vs. Trump I think was the intended comparison.

[Ripster42]

A lot of people were talking about "Trump's Katrina" after he got elected. Some were more literal than others, as it took Trump till June to put someone at the head of FEMA (there is no head of DHS yet), and he's been trying to cut CDC funds as well.

[

So after looking into this, looks like I was wrong in the other thread. FEMA does have a head. NOAA and DHS are still without directors though.

[Edge-]

So after looking into this, looks like I was wrong in the other thread. FEMA does have a head. NOAA and DHS are still without directors though.

It's an easy mistake to make given how many positions haven't been filled, primarily because the Trump administration has yet to nominate anyone or have their nominees that were confirmed fully staff up yet.

[Breccia]

It's an easy mistake to make given how many positions haven't been filled, primarily because the Trump administration has yet to nominate anyone or have their nominees that were confirmed fully staff up yet.

But their pussy-grabbing skills are totally on point. So, they have that.

[akris15]

Whoa rude, slander !


https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/sta...44603561922560

Now that is impressive!

[Breccia]

See, it's shit like this that's not helping. Trump's EPA chose today, fucking today of all days, to start cutting climate change scholarships and hold hearings about which drinking water safety regulations to roll back.

Meanwhile there's a motherfucking hurricane. Oh, and NASA is pretty clear that they're going to get worse before they get better.

[Edge-]

See, it's shit like this that's not helping. Trump's EPA chose today, fucking today of all days, to start cutting climate change scholarships and hold hearings about which drinking water safety regulations to roll back.

Meanwhile there's a motherfucking hurricane. Oh, and NASA is pretty clear that they're going to get worse before they get better.

Don't forget the UNCF, they want to postpone next month's conference because despite their meeting with Trump in February where Trump promised strong White House support, the administration still hasn't even named a director for the White House Initiative on HBCU's or really done anything.

Which makes their meeting with Trump, like so many other meetings with Trump, seem like little more than photo-ops that the White House had little to no interest in actually doing anything about afterwards.

Also, all the secrecy of the EPA is terrifying. Pruitt is potentially doing major, longterm damage to the agencies ability to carry out its function effectively. In a turn of events that literally anyone could have predicted the second he was confirmed.

[Ripster42]

Also, all the secrecy of the EPA is terrifying. Pruitt is potentially doing major, longterm damage to the agencies ability to carry out its function effectively. In a turn of events that literally anyone could have predicted the second he was confirmed.

I hope pruit is charged with manslaughter just like michigan's people are when the inevitable happens. He belongs in jail for what he's doing.

[Cthulhu 2020]

See, it's shit like this that's not helping. Trump's EPA chose today, fucking today of all days, to start cutting climate change scholarships and hold hearings about which drinking water safety regulations to roll back.

Meanwhile there's a motherfucking hurricane. Oh, and NASA is pretty clear that they're going to get worse before they get better.

@Breccia Is Scott Pruitt literally a Captain Planet villain?

[draynay]

@Breccia Is Scott Pruitt literally a Captain Planet villain?

He's every kind of villain, he's probably trying to figure out how to fake his own death and run the EPA from the shadows.

[Breccia]

One night off. I wanted ONE night off.

Trump officially bans transgenders from the military, pardons Arpaio, North Korea launches missiles in every direction and Gorka resigns ALL IN THE LAST FEW HOURS.

[Poopymonster]

One night off. I wanted ONE night off.

Trump officially bans transgenders from the military, pardons Arpaio, North Korea launches missiles in every direction and Gorka resigns ALL IN THE LAST FEW HOURS.

I can't keep up with all these threads.

Can we get it consolidated into a megathread. "Trump: What's weak this week"

[Alindra]

One night off. I wanted ONE night off.

Trump officially bans transgenders from the military, pardons Arpaio, North Korea launches missiles in every direction and Gorka resigns ALL IN THE LAST FEW HOURS.

I can't even put into words how disgusted I am with this administration. I just... I'm sorry, what did you say, Dr. Grant?



Me too, buddy. Me too.

[Breccia]

You know, I posted earlier that a Watergate prosecutor said Trump was moving like a guy who knew he was about to be impeached.

That was before the Cat 4 shitstorm he just whipped up. I'd say the evidence is leaning in that direction. How much trouble is he in, anyhow? If he's this worried, that he's flinging his excrementive orders around this quickly, he had to know about the meeting with Russia in Trump Tower. Which he was sitting in at the time of the meeting.

[Edge-]

You know, I posted earlier that a Watergate prosecutor said Trump was moving like a guy who knew he was about to be impeached.

That was before the Cat 4 shitstorm he just whipped up. I'd say the evidence is leaning in that direction. How much trouble is he in, anyhow? If he's this worried, that he's flinging his excrementive orders around this quickly, he had to know about the meeting with Russia in Trump Tower. Which he was sitting in at the time of the meeting.

It's like Trump was sad that there was no Friday Surprise from the NYT or WashPo so he decided to deliver his own.

[Breccia]

POLLS SHOW TRUMP, THE LEAST POPULAR PRESIDENT EVER, IS SEEING HIS APPROVAL RATING SINK TO AN ALL-TIME LOW

No president in the history of modern polling had an approval rating so poor at this point in his tenure, according to FiveThirtyEight's tracker, though Gerald Ford was quite close. His approval rating was 37.4 percent on day 218 of his presidency, just 0.2 percentage points better than Trump's on Friday. It's worth noting that Ford's popularity plummeted after he pardoned his predecessor, Richard Nixon, who resigned in disgrace following the Watergate scandal. It was a widely condemned move at the time, but perceptions have since shifted and it is now largely seen as a brave decision that helped the country heal.

After briefly sinking into the high 30s earlier this month, Trump has at least pulled back into the low 40s in the Rasmussen Reports tracking survey, which is often criticized for being right-leaning. His approval in the Rasmussen survey stood at 42 percent Friday, while 56 percent disapproved.

[Mormolyce]

When was that? Before he took lead of the Birther idiocy? Maybe even as far back as the 1980s?

No I mean GWB.

[Belize]

Oh what the actual fuck. What a douchetard.

I didn't think he'd be that stupid, but I'm yet again surprised as to how far past the barrel we can dig.