President Donald Trump, even with the recent whistleblower allegations, is not as unpopular with Americans as the mainstream media would have you believe.
According to a recent poll, President Trump has higher job approval ratings than the top Democrat in Congress — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
That’s right, Nancy
The poll was conducted by the Marist Institute for Public Opinion via telephone on Wednesday, the day Pelosi announced the House impeachment inquiry. It found that Trump’s job approval rating held steady at 44 percent, while Pelosi is down at 39 percent.
There were 864 participants in the poll, and the margin of error has been reported at 4.6 percentage points. This means that it is fairly safe to conclude that its findings, at least in regard to Trump versus Pelosi, are accurate.
NPR and others, however, have been quick to point out that the poll was taken before the actual whistleblower complaint was released to the public on Thursday. The implication, in other words, is that the allegations in the complaint could have changed the minds of the poll participants.
“But the pollsters warn that the new developments could change public opinion quickly,” wrote NPR, “especially with 7 in 10 [participants] saying they are paying attention to the news.”
Other findings
As part of the poll, Marist also focused on the impeachment inquiry itself in order to determine just how many Americans support it.
It found that 49 percent approve the inquiry, while 46 percent do not. And, among independents specifically, 50 percent oppose it.
The poll found that 50 percent feel that the impeachment inquiry is a “serious matter” while 48 percent of respondents think that it is “just politics.”
And finally, on “whether it’s worth going through with if the Senate doesn’t convict and Trump gets to stay in office” — a likely scenario considering that the Senate is controlled by Republicans — 49 percent said that it is not worth it while 47 percent said that it is.
The facts
Some of these numbers would seem to indicate that there is a “boy who cried wolf” scenario that is going on with impeaching Trump. In other words, Democrats have focused so hard on impeaching Trump over nothing, that even if they did have something this time — which is not clear at all — no one cares.
But, what the numbers really help us to do is see the mainstream media for what it is. Again, if that’s all one followed, these numbers must seem shocking.
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