According to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, only 47% of Americans hold President Donald Trump responsible for the government shutdown, while 33% of the respondents blame the Democrats. Only 7% say it’s the Republicans’ fault.
Given the relentless two-year media campaign against Trump, and his corresponding unpopularity among large segments of the population who get their information from the mainstream news, surprisingly few people blame the president.
To put this in perspective, according to the Real Clear Politics average presidential approval rating, 52% disapprove of the president. Thus, a significant portion of the people who don’t approve of Trump do not blame him for the government shutdown. In a polarized political climate, this is nothing short of extraordinary.
...polls may underreport support of the wall or Trump.
Rasmussen Reports tracks how many people strongly approve or disapprove of the president, and these numbers, 33% and 44% respectively, almost perfectly match the way voters assign responsibility: Trump fans blame the Democrats, and the haters blame Trump.
None of these findings should surprise. People’s opinions are largely ideologically determined. A more interesting part of the poll, however, is the fact that only 35% of the respondents said they supported including money for the wall in the budget, which again corresponds to the core base of Trump’s support.
Americans Want Open Borders?
On the surface, this seems to imply that most Americans are comfortable with illegal immigration. There are several problems with this interpretation. First, not being in favor of the wall is not the same as wanting open borders. Many people want to improve border security but think that the wall is bad optics or don’t believe that walls work.
Second, as author Ann Coulter pointed out in her bestseller Adios, America, every time Americans have been allowed to vote their opinion about immigration in elections in the last 30 years, they have consistently chosen stricter immigration policies. In today’s political climate, where many rightfully fear attacks by the far left, polls may underreport support of the wall or Trump. Remember, on Election Day in 2016, most polls showed that Hillary Clinton had a comfortable lead and more than a 95% chance of winning the election.
Third, a significant portion of Americans gets all their information from the fake news media. If America had a largely objective press that reliably presented facts, it is likely that conservative and libertarian positions would have appreciably greater support.
Disapproval Is Eroding
The real news is perhaps that, despite a hysterical propaganda war against the president in the legacy media, Trump’s approval slowly increases while disapproval erodes. Some are even being red-pilled. One of these is the far-left progressive YouTuber Amazing Atheist, who recently published a video declaring his profound confusion.
In one strange week he saw that Trump pushed through a criminal justice reform bill and a bump stock ban, announced the withdrawal of troops from Syria, and ordered the withdrawal of half the troops in Afghanistan. As a bonus, he observed that Americans contributed millions of dollars for the wall in a GoFundMe campaign.
Amazing Atheist named his video “The Week Trump Broke Politics.” What broke was not politics, but the narrative. More and more people are seeing these glitches in the Matrix and unhooking from the media that are programming their opinions. Do not be surprised if future polls and elections show that many more are developing an immunity to the media narrative.
