They’re finally admitting it
As I’ve written about more than once, Donald Trump entered office with a historically low approval rating for an incoming US President, and it’s continued to incrementally drop further as he’s made a mess of one thing after another. But up to now most of the media has either ignored this, or taken Trump’s numbers out of context in order to falsely declare that he’s historically popular. That is, until now.
Call it what you will. A breaking point. A strategic shift in narrative. Or merely a matter of something becoming so obvious to the general public that the media knows it can’t falsely spin it anymore. But whatever has brought it on, the media is now (loudly) admitting that Trump is indeed historically unpopular. Of course their headlines are implying that this just now happened, when in reality it’s been the case since day one. But that’s fine, because now they’re making a focus of it.
One headline after another is now declaring just how unpopular Donald Trump is. And that matters, because these things tend to be a self fulfilling prophecy. If someone who doesn’t much care about or pay attention to politics sees that the President is popular, they’ll probably just assume that the President must be doing a good job, and they’re go along with it. If that same person sees the President is unpopular, they’ll probably go along with that instead.
In other words, each round of headlines about Trump’s unpopularity will make him even more unpopular. We saw the media spend four years doing this to President Biden, even going so far as to often falsely overstate his unpopularity in order to drive the narrative. Now the media is doing it to Trump, and since he is historically unpopular, the media doesn’t even have to exaggerate it.
Remember, any US President’s real power is derived from his approval rating. If Trump’s approval rating were in the fifties or sixties, he might be able to get away with overthrowing the Supreme Court and the Judicial Branch. But with his approval rating sinking into the forties and even thirties – and with everyone now knowing that he’s that unpopular – his political muscle is withering by the hour. Let’s continue chipping away at him and keep up the trend.
