Republicans 'play make-believe' as 'delusional' Trump loses grip on reality: analysis
As last week got underway, MSNBC producer Steve Benen says Donald Trump described “an alternate reality he clearly preferred to the one we live in.”
“In a post published to his social media platform, the Republican president described a political landscape in which he’s ‘getting the best Polling Numbers’ of his career, thanks to public satisfaction with the economy and ‘rapidly falling Energy prices,’” reports Benen.
“The claims appeared delusional,” said Benen, especially considering public dissatisfaction with the state of the economy and high energy costs. But in the days that followed, Benen said Trump “did what he always does: repeat nonsensical claims in the hope that public perception can be bullied into submission.”
“I have the best poll numbers I’ve ever had,” Trump told reporters last week. Two days later he added: “I have the best numbers for any president in many years — any president.”
“Whether the president genuinely believes such claims is anyone’s guess, but the latest statistical evidence makes his absurdities appear even more ridiculous,” Benen said, pointing to national surveys showing disapproval for Trump in the 60s, the highest for both his terms. “… Put another way, Trump’s support isn’t just sinking, it’s also reached a new low for the year, and it’s reached depths no other modern incumbent has seen at this point in their presidency.”
But Republicans are just as deep in denial as Trump, said Benen. They respond to ugly polls by complaining about “fake” data, while Trump carries on with claims of enjoying “the best numbers” of his career.
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer recently boasted on Fox Business that Trump is “only getting more popular,” despite Trump growing less popular, and Benen said Emmer has “plenty of company,” with Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) also telling Fox Business that Trump’s approval rating “couldn’t be higher.” Even House Speaker Mike Johnson declared on CNBC over the summer that he saw a poll that showed the president’s approval rating at 90 percent, said Benen.
“The partywide rhetoric is obviously foolish, but it speaks to a larger point: Trump can’t run again, but congressional Republicans can,” argued Benen. “The lower the president’s support sinks, the more the GOP confronts a question about what to do with reality-based data: Do they start to distance themselves from a woefully unpopular president, or do they continue to join Trump in playing make-believe and take their chances with a dissatisfied electorate?”
Read the MSNBC report at this link.
