There are many ways that Donald Trump will go down in history. For instance, the news that he is the most unpopular first year President in the history of Presidential polling:
Donald Trump’s plunging approval rating has officially made him the most unpopular first-year president in the history of presidential polling, according to the latest figures from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
The new poll shows Trump’s approval rating sitting at a historically low 32 percent, while his disapproval rating has soared to 67 percent. That leaves his net approval rating sitting 35 points underwater.
At this point in President Obama’s first term, the same AP poll found that 56 percent of Americans approved of his job performance, compared to 42 percent who disapproved. That works out to a 14 point net positive approval rating.
If you’re keeping track, that means Obama’s net approval rating was 49 points higher than Trump’s at the same point during his presidency.
There’s also this. One of the most important indicators in polls isn’t going Trump’s way, either:
Only three in 10 Americans believe the U.S. is headed in the right direction, compared to 52 percent who say the country is worse off since Trump took office in January.
Just 23 percent of Americans overall and only half of Republicans think Trump has kept his campaign promises, which included pledges to overhaul the Affordable Care Act, withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, and invest in a major nationwide infrastructure initiative. Trump has not followed through on any of those.
According to the new poll, only 25 percent of Americans say the country is better off since Trump took office — and even less (20 percent) say they are better off personally.
“By contrast, an AP-NORC poll conducted a year ago found that Americans were more likely to think the country had become better off over the course of Barack Obama’s presidency than worse off, 46 percent to 33 percent,” AP reports.
Still, in one way Trump is uniting the country:
Ironically, Trump’s divisiveness is the issue that unites Americans the most. Only 9 percent think Trump’s presidency has helped unite the country, while 67 percent think the country is more divided because of Trump.
All of these numbers are unlikely to rise if “rumors” reportedly swirling in Washington and raging on Twitter prove accurate– that Trump intends to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the stage is being set now (rumored to happen near Xmas):
Hours after word spread through D.C. that Trump may be planning to fire Mueller on Friday, Trump's legal team publicly accused Mueller of violating the law—a firing offense. If you see those as unrelated facts, the next few months are going to come as a real shock to you, friend.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 17, 2017
For more comments from blogs on the Mueller story GO HERE
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.