The Summit with Russia was a great success, except with the real enemy of the people, the Fake News Media. I look forward to our second meeting so that we can start implementing some of the many things discussed, including stopping terrorism, security for Israel, nuclear……..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 19, 2018
That’s a message from the President of the United States and because we’ve all become numb to the sheer insanity of this after 18 months, it’s worth reminding you what this would look like were it presented as an official statement from the leader of the free world.
https://twitter.com/RealPressSecBot/status/1019936404489494533
It is unconscionable that the President would call the media the “real enemy of the people”. No matter how many times you’re tempted to write that off as just “Trump being Trump”, never forget that all attempts to rationalize it aside, it’s still the President of the United States suggesting that the free press is anathema to American prosperity. That is precisely the opposite of what America has always stood for when it comes to press freedom.
If you can get past that, Trump claims that outside of the media, everyone thinks the summit in Helsinki was “a great success”. Of course that’s a demonstrable lie. We know that because Republicans spent all day on Tuesday criticizing it. Even Fox’s Neil Cavuto called the spectacle“disgusting”. John Kelly reportedly called GOP lawmakers and implored them to speak out against the President and according to Axios, one of Trump’s own former National Security Council officials texted the following during the joint press conference with Putin:
Dude. This is a total [effing] disgrace. The President has lost his mind.
Clearly, it’s not just the media that thinks what happened on Monday was a disaster. But what about “the people”? How do they feel?
Well, let’s ask them.
According to a CBS poll, only 32% of Americans approved of Trump’s handling of the summit (and really, it’s astonishing it’s that high):
(CBS, full results embedded below)
Meanwhile, an Axios survey paints a similar picture, with only 40% of Americans approving and 58% disapproving:
As you can see, both of these surveys suggest that Republicans steadfastly refuse to abandon Trump no matter what he does, although the fact that only 68% of GOP voters endorsed his performance in the CBS survey isn’t exactly great.
Perhaps more worrisome for Trump is the fact that Independents overwhelmingly disapproved of the spectacle, suggesting that those who purport to be some semblance of agnostic on party affiliation (and cut me some slack on that characterization), thought Monday was bad.
As Axios’s Mike Allen writes, the reason “elected Republicans go so silent so quickly when they disagree so strongly with President Trump [is that] they fear it’s political suicide to speak up.”
The numbers from these surveys underscore that assessment.
Who knows what it will ultimately take for Trump’s base to abandon him and there’s all kinds of evidence to suggest that nothing would be sufficient to sway some voters. That said, my guess is that once people start losing jobs and see their livelihoods threatened by the tariffs and the trade war threat, you might start to see some figurative and literal cracks in the base.
After all, when you start messing with people’s money, that’s when things get real, so to speak. Just ask a farmer.
Axios
CBS
I recently returned from a 2 month journey in Europe, where I visited with a number of acquaintances in France, Germany and Switzerland. They all were anxious to joke about Trump and discuss politics. However, they all held negative views towards their own news media. It was the same everywhere. “The news used to be ‘we report, you decide’, now it’s ‘here’s the latest sensation, and how you should feel about it'”. Mainstream news is only about entertainment and viewership (advertising). Feel good stories like the Thai cave rescue or tragedies like crime by immigrants dominate all other relevant topics. This disgust with agenda-driven “reporting” is why trump is so popular with attacking the press.
The American people must stop letting is evil, vile, lying, disgusting group of crooks continue to dismantle our country. What else will it take? The fool is compromised, you can see it in trump’s face, you can also see it in Vlad’s smirking face. It is all over Russian media, it is all over the world’s top news organization’s feeds put out every day. Everyone must vote these criminals out McConnell, Ryan, and any republican or independent or democrat who won’t stand up to this puppet of Putin. If not our Republic is gone and Fascism is you new world order.
The Ghost of Tom Joad
Bruce Springsteen
Men walking ‘long the railroad tracks
Going someplace, there’s no going back
Highway patrol choppers coming up over the ridge
Hot soup on a campfire under the bridge
Shelter line stretching ’round the corner
Welcome to the new world order
Families sleeping in the cars in the southwest
No home, no job, no peace, no rest
Well the highway is alive tonight
But nobody’s kidding nobody about where it goes
I’m sitting down here in the campfire light
Searching for the ghost of Tom Joad
He pulls a prayer book out of his sleeping bag
Preacher lights up a butt and he takes a drag
Waiting for when the last shall be first and the first shall be last
In a cardboard box ‘neath the underpass
You got a one-way ticket to the promised land
You got a hole in your belly and a gun in your hand
Sleeping on a pillow of solid rock
Bathing in the city’s aqueduct
Go!
Well the highway is alive tonight
Where it’s headed everybody knows
I’m sitting down here in the campfire light
Waiting on the ghost of Tom Joad
Now Tom said, “Mom, wherever there’s a cop beating a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there’s a fight against the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me, Mom, I’ll be there
Wherever somebody’s fighting for a place to stand
Or a decent job or a helping hand
Wherever somebody’s struggling to be free
Look in their eyes, Ma, and you’ll see me”
Yeah!
The highway is alive tonight
Where it’s headed everybody knows
I’m sitting down here in the campfire light
With the ghost of old Tom Joad
Songwriters: Bruce Springsteen
The Ghost of Tom Joad lyrics © Downtown Music Publishing
Welcome to the New World Order………..