Political Blue Gene

APRIL 8, 2020

IGNORE THE TALKING HEADS

Once again, I heard someone today on MSNBC talk about the bump that Trump has achieved in his approval ratings since the advent of the pandemic.  Only thing is, the bump doesn’t exist.  According to Real Clear Politics, eight national polls were released today and the average rating for Trump was Approve = 45%, Disapprove = 51%.  If that’s a bump, what will happen when things go back down?

There is also evidence that his approval rating for how he is handling the coronavirus pandemic, which had been slightly positive, now mirrors his overall approval ratings.  The five polls that asked this question gave Trump a combined rating of Approve = 46%, Disapprove = 51%. 

For a brief period of time, Trump allowed Dr. Fauci and others to take the lead at the daily briefings.  But he could not permit that to continue.  In his mind, he must always be the center of attention and he can do no wrong.  So he has quickly reverted to attacking anybody and everybody for the failures of his administration and has reminded everyone of who and what he is.  Maybe David Brooks, New York Times and PBS Newshour contributor, is correct.  Brooks has argued for some time that nothing in the current situation will make much difference to Trump’s approval ratings.  Most everyone made up their minds a long time ago about him and that’s that.

On other topics…

Bernie Sanders picked a good time to suspend his campaign.  With many contested elections in Wisconsin yesterday, he maximized Democratic turnout in the election-that-should-never-have-been.  He is right that he has had a tremendous influence on political discourse in this country, but unlike 2016, it looks like he will be an active participant in the general election campaign.  Perhaps it is true that he and Biden are, indeed, friends.  Once again, we see how much personal relationships can influence world events…

Yesterday, Gavin Newsom announced that the State of California has partnered with a major manufacturer and various non-profits (none of which he has identified as of this writing) to sign a contract that will bring 200 million masks, N95 and surgical, to California every month, and extras will be distributed to other Western states.  In his announcement on Rachel Maddow’s show yesterday, he referred to California as being a “nation-state” because it has the 5th largest economy in the world and he felt it was time to act like it, using its formidable negotiating power.  He is also lending ventilators to other states currently in critical need (like New Jersey).  These are the kinds of things the federal government should have been doing for the last 2 months, at least.  I am very proud of our Governor…

And one final note:  If you still have some idealism about this country, and you don’t hate musicals, you might want to check out the film version of the show 1776 on Amazon Prime.  It is a reasonably accurate portrayal of the writing of the Declaration of Independence.  This is the Director’s Cut and a little long, at 2:45, but only costs $1.99.