WSJ NBC News Poll: 86% agree with Trump that a few in Washington have 'reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.' For first time since 2002, Republican optimism soars. Americans overall "view Trump more positively than negatively on being effective, bringing change to D.C., being firm and decisive, direct and straightforward-and perhaps most importantly, dealing with the economy”-Wall St. Journal, 2/26/17. Poll dates, 2/18-2/22/17

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"Asked about the course of the country, 40% said the nation is headed in the right direction. That is up from 33% in December and 18% in July."
 
Poll dates: Feb. 18-22, 2017, telephone interviews with 1000 adults nationwide. (No further description, such as if respondents voted, political affiliation, male vs female) 3.1 error margin on total. No link to poll. Article is WSJ subscription.

2/26/17, "Many Americans Disapprove of Trump but Are Open to His Agenda, Poll Finds," Wall St. Journal, Michael C. Bender

(Scroll to paragraph 17): "47% said they approve of most of his policies. That is a higher rate than Ronald Reagan recorded in January 1987, or George W. Bush in March 2006. Among three previous Republican presidents, only George H.W. Bush had a higher rating, in October 1991, with 50% approving. 

When pollsters tested one of the lines from Mr. Trump’s inaugural speech—asking whether a small group in Washington had “reaped the rewards of government, while the people have borne the cost”—an overwhelming majority of 86% said they agreed.

“I thought this would test well, but never thought it would reach 86%,” Mr. McInturff said. 

He added that while Mr. Trump’s speeches are often described as dark and apocalyptic, many individual lines resonate powerfully with many Americans. That may continue with Mr. Trump’s address to Congress on Tuesday. 

The poll suggested that the public may be sympathetic to some of Mr. Trump’s recent attacks on the media. A majority of adults, 51%, said the media has been too critical of the president, while 41% said the press has been fair and objective.

When a similar question was asked in the third year of Mr. Clinton’s first term, 45% said news coverage of the president was fairly well balanced, while about one-third said it was biased against Mr. Clinton and 16% said it was biased in his favor.

Aiding Mr. Trump’s approval rating was the fact that Americans are slowly becoming more optimistic about the country and the economy. Asked about the course of the country, 40% said the nation is headed in the right direction. That is up from 33% in December, and 18% in July.

A plurality of Americans, 41%, continue to believe that the U.S. economy will improve, a postelection shift that followed three years in which most Americans expected economic prospects to remain stagnant. Among those who are anticipating improvement, 73% credit the expected gains mostly to Mr. Trump’s policies, while 20% say it would result from the normal ebb and flow of the business cycle. 

Some 60% of Americans now say they’re hopeful and optimistic about the future of the country, up 4 percentage points from December. Just 40% are worried and pessimistic, slightly lower than in other recent Journal/NBC News polls.

That optimism is reflected in a sharp change in how Americans view major institutions in the country. For the first time since 2002, a majority of adults, or 52%, say they don’t believe the nation’s economic and political systems are stacked against them. An improved outlook among Republicans is largely responsible for the change....

“His voters wanted change,” Mr. McInturff said. “He’s not another president; he’s their president. And Americans overall do view him more positively than negatively on being effective, bringing change to D.C., being firm and decisive, direct and straightforward—and perhaps most importantly, dealing with the economy.” 

The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll was based on nationwide telephone interviews of 1,000 adults conducted from Feb. 18-22. Overall, the data’s margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. The margin of error for subgroups is larger."

"Write to Michael C. Bender at Mike.Bender@wsj.com"

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Comment: George W. Bush scorned Republican voters and ensured that the Republican Party, if it existed at all, didn't reflect views of its voters. He left the country with only one functioning political party, no checks and balances, effectively a dictatorship. Trump offered to represent us and didn't scorn us:

2/26/2017: "For the first time since 2002, a majority of adults, or 52%, say they don’t believe the nation’s economic and political systems are stacked against them. An improved outlook among Republicans is largely responsible for the change."... 

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Added: Written 10 years ago, 6/2/2007: George W. Bush  cavalierly destroyed the Republican Party: George W. Bush "sundered the party that rallied to him, and broke his colition to pieces...This is sad, and it holds implications not only for one political party but for the American future....Now conservatives and Republicans are going to have to win back their party. They are going to have to break from those who have already broken from them."...6/2/2007, Peggy Noonan, WSJ 

6/2/2007, "Too bad," Wall St. Journal, by Peggy Noonan 

"What political conservatives and on-the-ground Republicans must understand at this point is that they are not breaking with the White House on immigration. They are not resisting, fighting and thereby setting down a historical marker -- "At this point the break became final." That's not what's happening. What conservatives and Republicans must recognize is that the White House has broken with them. What President Bush is doing, and has been doing for some time, is sundering a great political coalition. This is sad, and it holds implications not only for one political party but for the American future.

The White House doesn't need its traditional supporters anymore, because its problems are way beyond being solved by the base. And the people in the administration don't even much like the base. Desperate straits have left them liberated, and they are acting out their disdain. Leading Democrats often think their base is slightly mad but at least their heart is in the right place. This White House thinks its base is stupid and that its heart is in the wrong place.

For almost three years, arguably longer, conservative Bush supporters have felt like sufferers of battered wife syndrome. You don't like endless gushing spending, the kind that assumes a high and unstoppable affluence will always exist, and the tax receipts will always flow in? Too bad! You don't like expanding governmental authority and power? Too bad. You think the war was wrong or is wrong? Too bad.

But on immigration it has changed from "Too bad" to "You're bad."

The president has taken to suggesting that opponents of his immigration bill are are unpatriotic -- they "don't want to do what's right for America." His ally Sen. Lindsey Graham has said, "We're gonna tell the bigots to shut up." On Fox last weekend he vowed to "push back."

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff suggested opponents would prefer illegal immigrants be killed; Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said those who oppose the bill want "mass deportation." Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson said those who oppose the bill are "anti-immigrant" and suggested they suffer from "rage" and "national chauvinism."

Why would they speak so insultingly, with such hostility, of opponents who are concerned citizens? And often, though not exclusively, concerned conservatives? It is odd, but it is of a piece with, or a variation on, the "Too bad" governing style. And it is one that has, day by day for at least the past three years, been tearing apart the conservative movement....

The beginning of my own sense of separation from the Bush administration came in January 2005, when the president declared that it is now the policy of the United States to eradicate tyranny in the world, and that the survival of American liberty is dependent on the liberty of every other nation. This was at once so utopian and so aggressive that it shocked me. For others the beginning of distance might have been Katrina and the incompetence it revealed, or the depth of the mishandling and misjudgments of Iraq....

One of the things I have come to think the past few years is that the Bushes, father and son, though different in many ways, are great wasters of political inheritance. 

They throw it away as if they'd earned it and could do with it what they liked. Bush senior inherited a vibrant country and a party at peace with itself. He won the leadership of a party that had finally, at great cost, by 1980, fought itself through to unity and come together on shared principles. Mr. Bush won in 1988 by saying he would govern as Reagan had. Yet he did not understand he'd been elected to Reagan's third term. He thought he'd been elected because they liked him. And so he raised taxes, sundered a hard-won coalition, and found himself shocked to lose the presidency, and for eight long and consequential years. He had many virtues, but he wasted his inheritance.

Bush the younger came forward, presented himself as a conservative, garnered all the frustrated hopes of his party, turned them into victory, and not nine months later was handed a historical trauma that left his country rallied around him, lifting him, and his party bonded to him. He was disciplined and often daring, but in time he sundered the party that rallied to him, and broke his coalition into pieces. He threw away his inheritance. I do not understand such squandering.

Now conservatives and Republicans are going to have to win back their party. They are going to have to break from those who have already broken from them. This will require courage, serious thinking and an ability to do what psychologists used to call letting go. This will be painful, but it's time. It's more than time."




 

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