People, Personas, and Politics 12 – Worst Presidents Ever
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): People, Personas, and Politics
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/31
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Rick Rosner: If I’m right about Buchanan, and I have to look it up, Buchanan is the worst president, not including Trump because he has only been president for a few weeks. But among presidents that we know, Buchanan probably has the worst, Harding is second worst, and George W. Bush is third worst.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What about projecting forward to the next election? What might be the popular reaction and, therefore, vote results in the 2020 election? Also, the possible candidates that might come up.
RR: Trump has been under wat for all but 3 or so days of his presidency. That is, his disapproval rating is currently at 54%. His approval rating is at 40%. So he’s 14% under water. 14% more people disapprove than approve of his presidency. He’s had more disapproval than approval for 63 out of 66 days. All but the first few days of his presidency. With such a low approval, it’s hard to get re-elected.
But presidents have had low approval ratings before and have managed to eke out victories, or even somewhat strong victories, as their approval ratings momentarily pop up during an election. George W. Bush, managed to get re-elected even after being in a—after he ramped up the war or ramped up the threat of terror around the election, and people were scared and voted to keep him on. Obama had ratings in the 40s for much of his first administration, and managed to pop up his approval above 50% long enough to get re-elected.
Then he dropped back down into the 40s for much of presidency, then his approval rose up into the 50s and ended at 61 as people saw what was coming and had premature nostalgia. So right now, Trump is doing terrible. But he may hang on, We’re waiting to see how tainted he is by Russian meddling in the election. How much he knew, how much his people colluded with Russia, that may take him down.
But that may not because it is a Republican Congress, and they are trying to cover his butt. Even though Trump seems obviously terrible to most of the US population, he may still or may survive 4 years and manage to get re-elected. And that could lead to even more terribleness. He doesn’t seem to exercise much restraint now. But he does worry about being re-elected because he is already running 2020 election rallies, which is unprecedented. But as a lame duck, as someone who is not worried about being re-elected in a second Trump term, he might be even crazier than he is now.
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