WaPo Opinion: "There Will Be No Trump Collapse"

Trump's enemies have all deployed the same strategy against him: the mere hope that he will self-destruct.

This was the Establishment's only plan during the primaries, and I guess it's the left's plan now. (Or at least one of their main plans. They do a lot of obstruction and accusing, too.)

There will be no Trump collapse.

From the moment late in 2016 when Hillary Clinton’s formless, themeless, listless campaign handed the White House to Donald Trump (assisted by Comrade Putin), Democrats have been counting on the reckless, heedless, careless novice to return the favor. Rather than melt down, though, President Trump is gaining strength.

After a rocky start, the president has cut himself loose from the highly unpopular Congress to create a clear account of his unusual reign, which he repeats with unflagging discipline. He's a rulebreaker who gets results, and the enemies of change are conspiring to stop him. This is a polarizing message, indeed. But Trump appears to understand that popularity and unpopularity aren't necessarily opposites. They can be partners: Emotion runs both ways.

Since Trump found his footing and lasered in on this message, his political fortunes have brightened considerably. Last December, the RealClearPolitics rolling average of presidential approval polls showed him underwater by a dangerous 21 percentage points. Nearly 60 percent of Americans disapproved of the president's performance, while his approval rating sagged into the 30s.

But look what’s happened since. Despite a stalled stock market, and with the Republican agenda dead in the water, Trump's numbers have popped to the surface. His approval rating has risen from a dismal 37 percent to 44 percent -- not bad in this sour age. (At the same point in his presidency, Barack Obama had fallen to 46 percent approval on his way down to 44.)

Meanwhile, the gap between Trump’s approval and disapproval numbers has narrowed significantly, from 21 points to eight. Admittedly, that’s a pretty solid eight-point deficit; the intensity of opposition to Trump is unusually high. But his command of the GOP going into the midterm is complete. According to Gallup polling, Trump enjoys greater Republican loyalty than any president of the post-World War II era other than George W. Bush after 9/11.

Democrats have a mammoth task on their hands.

...

And their Plan A for escaping the hole, a big Blue Wave that will lift Democrats from coast to coast, may already have crested far out at sea. Looking again at the polling averages on RealClearPolitics, we see that Democrats enjoyed a sturdy 13-point advantage over Republicans in December among voters asked which party they favored to run Congress. That edge has ebbed to a mere 3.2 points.

You can't beat something with nothing. And Trump, whatever else one could say about him, is definitely something.

This should do it, though:

posted by Ace of Spades at 12:28 PM

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