Tag: jack posobiec
Trump's Favorite Pollster Shows His Disapproval Rating At 57 Percent

Trump's Favorite Pollster Shows His Disapproval Rating At 57 Percent

A new tracking poll from a Republican-leaning pollster shows Donald Trump's approval rating has taken a huge hit during the coronavirus pandemic.

On Wednesday, Rasmussen Reports' Daily Presidential Tracking Poll found Trump's approval rating at just 42 percent and his disapproval rating at 57 percent. The negative 15 point margin is his worst in the survey since late 2017.

The poll was sponsored by pro-Trump activist Jack Posobiec of the far-right One American News Network.

Trump has frequently praised Rasmussen's polls, calling the company "one of the most accurate in predicting the 2016 Election" and lauding the company for its "honest polling." As recently as February 25, he tweeted that he had reached "52% in the new Rasmussen Poll."

Rasmussen itself has a distinct pro-GOP bias. After the 2016 elections, polling analyst Nate Silver noted that "the Republican lean in its polls ran pretty much wire to wire."

"It had a significant Republican house effect early in the election cycle and a significant Republican house effect late in the election, and it would up turning into a significant Republican bias on Election Day," he wrote.

In September 2018, Ipsos Public Affairs research director Mallory Newall told Hill.TV that Rasmussen's adjustment of data based on party identification tends "to be more along the partisan angle, leaning toward the Republicans."

Rasmussen has consistently shown better numbers for Trump and his allies than other major polling firms. CNN analyst Harry Enten noted after the 2018 midterms that Rasmussen's polling had been the least accurate of any firm, actually showing Republicans ahead nationally by one point before the blue wave. "The midterm elections prove that at least for now Rasmussen is dead wrong and traditional pollsters are correct," he argued.

Wednesday's Rasmussen data, by contrast, reflect the same trends as other national pollsters.

Following a brief approval boost in March, as the coronavirus was first beginning to take hold, Trump's approval tumbled. FiveThirtyEight's current average puts him at 42.6 percent approval and 53.7 percent disapproval, while RealClearPolitics puts Trump's average at 43.5 percent approval and 54.5 percent disapproval.

Trump has been criticized broadly for his botched response and downplaying the threat. Harvard Global Health Institute head Ashish Jha told Bloomberg in March that the administration wasted about two months failing to ramp up widespread coronavirus testing as the pandemic spread across the country.

Though Trump has said that he does not "take responsibility at all" for the situation, the American people have increasingly blamed him, with a Pew Research Center poll as far back as April showing at least 65 percent of U.S. adults believed he had acted "too slow" in responding to the virus.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.

This Week In Crazy: Trump’s God-Given Mission To Nuke North Korea

This Week In Crazy: Trump’s God-Given Mission To Nuke North Korea

Nuclear holy war, Chi-Raqi occupation, and Al Gore’s “big ugly ass.” Welcome to This Week In Crazy, The National Memo’s weekly update on the loony, bigoted, and hateful behavior of the increasingly unhinged right wing. Starting with number five:

5. Jack Posobiec

Less crazy than dumb, Posobiec — the alt-righter who sued Alamo Drafthouse for its limited all-female screenings of Wonder Woman — tweeted the following in response to President Trump’s escalatory remarks on North Korea:

https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/895048512429330434

This is a classic example of justifying incompetence as three-dimensional chess. If you asked Trump to spell “genius,” he’d start writing the letter j before getting distracted by a push notification.

(Also, there’s no precedent for writing six as “VI” — unless you learned Roman numerals in school that day and wanted to show off. But I don’t care: this tweet’s not going on the fridge.)

4. Jesse Watters

I have a special place in my — what’s the opposite of heart? — for this ‘80s movie villain because he and I went to the same college and, aside from maybe Tucker Carlson, he’s probably the slimiest alum. (Though I reckon he could say the same of me if he wanted.)

Anyway, Watters on Friday called the entire city of Chicago “another swamp that needs to be drained.” His proposed method:

Remember what happened with the surge in Iraq where they went block to block and they invested heavily on boots on the ground, clear/hold [strategy], and they brought in the local population to really turn the tables. And it worked. Now Chicago needs the same thing.

Watters, it seems, gravely misinterpreted the message of Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq:

3. Robert Jeffress

The megachurch pastor from Texas added to his craziness CV — which includes attributing 9/11 to God’s punishment for abortion — by again justifying Trump’s chest-thumping. This time, Jeffress — responding to the president’s aforementioned North Korean tough-talk — said “God has given Trump authority to take out Kim Jong Un.”

So when the nuclear apocalypse hits, thank God.

2. Alex Jones

It’s hard to imagine a TWIC without Jones. The guy’s as prolific as he is imbalanced. On Tuesday, shortly before making fun of Al Gore’s “big ugly ass,” he revealed that he communicates, at least via written memos, with President Trump:

Big ugly asses notwithstanding, there is a difficult-to-describe poetry in Jones’s diatribes. Some exceptional turns of phrase you shouldn’t ever find in normal political discourse: “fill your hand, turd blossoms;” “my fat will just be accelerant in the fight;” and “You love death, that’s why I’m throwing myself against you.”

Small wonder, then, that his rants also work as indie folk songs.

1. Jim Bakker

Speaking of right-wing crazies who have Trump’s ear, this food bucket huckster revealed this week that he and his wife, Lori, met with other prominent evangelists at the White House on July 31.

According to Bakker — who nearly started crying as he recalled it — George O. Wood, leader of the General Council of the Assemblies of God, “spoke words,” bemoaning “unnecessary swearing.”

“This was not a social meeting,” Bakker said, referring to former communications director Anthony Scaramucci’s less-than-coincidental ouster that same day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LhMqkvIVE0

Check out previous editions of This Week In Crazy here. Think we missed something? Let us know in the comments!Get This Week In Crazy delivered to your inbox every Friday, by signing up for our daily email newsletter.