Trump loses it after new Fox News poll shows increased support for impeachment
Donald Trump loves to cite the words of Fox News hosts who might as well be on his payroll given the lengths to which they go to defend his most indefensible actions.
However, the minute the cable news network broadcasts anything remotely contradicting his party line, the president immediately drops his loyalty to the network that many people credit — along with the Kremlin — with helping him win the 2016 election with its ever-present gift of free media coverage of his every utterance.
Besides lashing out at the few network anchors who take their roles as journalists seriously and report the facts no matter how damaging they be for the president, Trump has been particularly critical of Fox News‘ polling operations which simply compile the statistical responses of a cross-section of Americans asked their opinions about the issues of the day.
Thus, when the network released the results today of its latest poll concerning attitudes towards Trump’s impeachment, Trump chose to shoot the messenger delivering the unfavorable news that the number of people supporting his impeachment and his removal from office had risen slightly since the last tally in late October.
The new poll from the conservative news channel has a full 50% of the sample wanting Trump to be ejected from the presidency, with 4% supporting impeachment without removal from office, and 41% who want him to stay put.
While the poll could be interpreted as somewhat favorable for Trump since the 1% uptick in those wanting his eviction from the White House is barely a major increase given the hours of testimony broadcast on live television detailing the evidence of his crimes, the president nonetheless could not withstand the implicit criticism of the results stating that half the country wants him gone without attacking the credibility of the poll from what is normally his biggest media booster.
The @foxnewPolls, always inaccurate, are heavily weighted toward Dems. So ridiculous – same thing happened in 2016. They got it all wrong. Get a new pollster!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 15, 2019
The ludicrousness of the assertion that Fox News is biased in its polling towards the Democrats while its daily broadcasts are so openly partisan towards Trump is mindblowing.
What Trump is stating by questioning the accuracy of the Fox News polling operation and suggesting that the network hire new statisticians is that numbers have no inherent truth beyond their favorability to his own aims and desires.
It’s as if the president were to say “I don’t like the fact that 2+2=4, so hire a new mathematician who will give me the result that I want, someone willing to tell the world that 2+2=7.”
To prove this point, the very next tweet that Trump posted consisted of entirely made up polling numbers that don’t correspond to any of the figures that major polling organizations have recently reported.
Approval Rating in Republican Party = 95%, a Record! Overall Approval Rating = 51%. Think of where I’d be without the never ending, 24 hour a day, phony Witch Hunt, that started 3 years ago!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 15, 2019
To correct the blatant lies that Trump is disseminating on social media, FiveThirtyEight.com‘s average of major polling organizations pegs the president’s overall approval rating at 42%, nearly nine points below his claimed 51%, and his disapproval rating at 53.3%. Only one outlier poll from Rasmussen Reports — rated only C+ for accuracy by FiveThirtyEight — comes close to Trump’s claimed figure with 49% of its respondents approving of Trump’s performance, a number equal to those who disapprove of it.
The president even inflated the number of Republican voters who approve of his performance.
The latest Gallup poll puts his GOP approval at only 90%, not the record 95% that he claims and a recent poll from The Washington Post and ABC News found that Trump’s approval fell to its lowest level yet among Republicans in the outlets’ polling with only 74% of GOP members approving of Trump’s performance as president.
Think of where the president would be if he only wasn’t the world’s most compulsive liar, complaining about “Witch Hunts” while presiding over a cauldron of swampy self-interest.
Hopefully, Senate Republicans will be consulting accurate poll numbers when they make their politically-motivated decisions as to whether they should follow the evidence and convict the president in his likely upcoming trial or calculate their reelection possibilities if they decide to continue pretending that Trump is morally fit to continue in office.
Already a party representing a fractional minority of the voters in this country, their decisions in any impeachment trial could signal the end of democracy in this country and lead them to advocate the interests of the even smaller group of wealthy donors above those of the average American.
Oh wait, that’s what they have been doing for decades, so really it’s just a matter of dropping the pretense.
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