Abbreviated pundit roundup: Trump's poll numbers take a huge dive
By Georgia Logothetis
Friday Jun 17, 2016 · 4:35 AM PDT
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/..._subject=trumps-poll-numbers-take-a-huge-dive
Huuuuuge, I tell you.
Steven Shepard at POLITICO brings us the latest Donald Trump poll numbers:
In 2016’s race to the bottom, Donald Trump is going to find out if you can become president when two-thirds of Americans don’t like you — and a majority can’t stand you. [...]
Trump is setting modern records for political toxicity — at least for a major-party candidate this far out from an election. Seventy percent of Americans surveyed in an
ABC News/Washington Post poll out this week had an unfavorable opinion of Trump, up 10 points over the past month. The poll showed Trump’s favorable rating cratering at 29 percent, down from 37 percent last month.
Here’s
Eugene Robinson’s latest take on Trump’s campaign:
Donald Trump must be the biggest liar in the history of American politics, and that’s saying something.
Trump lies the way other people breathe. We’re used to politicians who stretch the truth, who waffle or dissemble, who emphasize some facts while omitting others. But I can’t think of any other political figure who so
brazenly tells lie after lie, spraying audiences with such a fusillade of untruths that it is almost impossible to keep track. Perhaps he hopes the media and the nation will become numb to his constant lying. We must not.
The GOP civil war continues. Here’s
Margaret Carlson:
Smoke is rising from the Capitol dome and the first responders are missing in action. Instead of running into the building to save it from their presumptive nominee, Republicans are running away. Watch them scurry at the approach of a reporter wielding nothing more than a notebook or a mike asking about the latest outburst from Donald Trump. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's press briefings have been designated Trump-free zones. His No. 2, Senator John Cornyn, announced he won't take any Trump questions until after the November election.
Profiles in courage, one and all. Hiding is not working and the
situation is now dire. How could party leaders entrust the nuclear codes to the hands, big or small, of President Trump. In the last week alone, the Donald has accused President Barack Obama of treason. He says he is happy to talk to North Korea, without preconditions, and get it to put down its nuclear weapons, but he won't accredit the
Washington Post to follow his campaign. [...]
There was a time when a bucket of water would have worked to stop Trump. Now the conflagration is such that it will take high-powered hoses to put out. Republicans weren't willing to do it for the country. They may be willing to do it to save themselves.
Over at
The Wall Street Journal,
Reid Epstein and Julian Routh list the 42 times Trump has said something that should have sunk any other candidate:
Mark Feldstein, chair of broadcast journalism at the University of Maryland, has this to say on Trump’s treatment of the press:
Donald Trump’s recent
declaration of war against The Post is reminiscent of another angry thin-skinned Republican who launched a nasty crusade against the media: Richard Nixon. [...] Like Trump, Nixon’s battles with the press began long before his march to the White House. He, too, obsessively sought to manipulate the news coverage he desperately craved and wasn’t afraid to use intimidation if he thought it would help. Nixon’s conduct in office presents a chilling example of what a President Trump could do.
at
New York Magazine:
Donald Trump's renewed call for a ban on Muslim immigration after the Orlando shooting not only drew condemnation from President Obama and Hillary Clinton, but appears to have deepened the gap between Trump and Establishment Republicans: Paul Ryan responded with a statement of support for Muslims, while Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn have refused to talk about their party's candidate to the press. Will there be any fallout for Trump within the GOP?
No. We’ve just passed the first anniversary of Trump’s declaration of his presidential campaign, and the dynamic within the GOP has never changed. We know the drill: Trump says something outrageous or hateful. A few GOP leaders timidly say that what he’s said is racist, misogynistic, “not what
the Party of Lincoln stands for,” whatever. Then those leaders fall back in line. The dynamic will not change now, and for a simple reason. The GOP elites are frightened of Trump and frightened of their own party’s voters, who overwhelmingly supported Trump in the GOP primary.
Switching topics,
Clare Foran at
The Atlantic looks at the future of the Bernie Sanders revolution:
The changes Sanders is pressing for have the potential to power his political revolution forward. The party platform is ultimately not binding, but if Sanders can extract concessions from Clinton, and especially if he can do it in a highly publicized way, that could lay the groundwork for enacting a more progressive agenda down the line. As Brian Goldsmith
recently wrote in
The Atlantic, “once in office, presidents almost always try to carry out their pre-election agendas.”
Beyond the platform, Sanders
stated earlier this week that he wants to see changes to the presidential nominating contest. This might seem not to be the sweeping stuff of political revolutions. But it could help Sanders keep his supporters engaged in the political process. Many of them believe the election has proceeded unfairly. What incentive do they have to support, or volunteer for other progressive candidates, and turn out to vote next time around? If Sanders can reform the process, it could convince disaffected voters there’s a reason to continue to fight. That, of course, is precisely what Sanders needs if he wants to build a movement that will outlast this election.
On a final note, don’t miss this op-ed by
General Stanley McChrystal about gun safety laws:
As this national crisis continues to rage, I ask my fellow veterans — patriots who have worn the uniform, who took an oath to protect our Constitution and the Second Amendment, who served this great country — to add your voice to this growing call for change. America needs you.
In my life as a soldier and citizen, I have seen time and time again that inaction has dire consequences. In this case, one consequence of our leaders’ inaction is that felons, domestic abusers and suspected terrorists have easy access to firearms.
Some opponents of closing these gaps in our laws will continue to argue that dangerous people will obtain guns in our country no matter what, and therefore that taking steps to make it harder for them is fruitless. That is both poor logic and poor leadership.
