Summations Only

Your NoNukes quote from his Message 409 was only referring to the Trump approval ratings of 45%. I agree with you that that doesn't qualify as being "in the toilet", but it *is* the lowest of any modern president in the first month of his term. Like your man Trump, you seem to believe that you're just saying so makes it true, or maybe that just you're saying so is sufficient and that what you say doesn't have to have any factual support. But the polls were correct that Hillary had a considerable lead. In the end it turned out to be about 3 million votes. It still feels surprising that the popular vote broke out into the electoral college in a way that gave Trump a narrow victory in three key states. Trump hasn't lost favor among his base, and the media reports this continually, including after yesterday's press conference. Did that press conference seem normal to you? Have you ever seen a president act like Trump did yesterday? Wouldn't you expect people in general to respond negatively to this president's inability to begin hitting anything like a presidential stride. Now there's a new one. And you know this how? And apparently we're technological wizards, too. We couldn't keep Russian hackers out of Democratic emails, but we can hack the presidential Twitter account. Right. Well, you're here. Don't just tell us how you feel, tell us the facts behind how you feel. True ones, not the ones Trump likes to make up.AbE: Faith's OP was very short, just a few sentences, when I originally replied to it. She sure knows how to sow confusion.--PercyEdited by Percy, : AbE.

And you know this how?As I said, I agree with you that Trump's approval ratings are not "in the toilet." One should be careful how one doles out superlatives, otherwise none are left by the time something truly appropriate for a superlative occurs. In the case of approval ratings I'd call 30% or lower "in the toilet." Right now they're simply dismal for a president in the first month of a freshly elected administration. The media is reacting the same way anyone does to someone uttering serial untruths. As Shepard Smith of Fox News said yesterday, Trump "keeps repeating ridiculous throwaway lines that are not true at all." What trustworthy sources? Oh, wait a minute, you answer that question next: And you know he's very popular how?Actually I agree with you. Trump is very popular. 45% approval is nearly half the country. Presidential approval ratings spend most of their time between 35% and 70%.Whether someone wants to call an average 45% approval rating good or bad is a personal choice, but you can't argue with the number. It's a fact. And you know this is happening how? Please do not foster more confusion by moving text around between posts. No one should be significantly editing messages after they've been posted. The edit feature is for minor fixes/changes, not for wholesale rewrites or addendums. Abusers of the edit privilege can lose it.--Percy

But I do have evidence. I have in the past gone to polling websites to discover the details of their methodology, including even the exact phrasing of the questions they asked. I can and did, for example, go to the Gallup website to find the Gallop methodology for their daily tracking polls. If you have a problem with their approach, what is it? And you know this how? I mean in a factual sense - what is the evidence upon which you base this judgment? Or is it just more intuition and personal judgment from the person who believes in witches. Of course I believe the mainstream polling - it was correct about Hillary leading Trump, since she won the popular vote by 3 million votes, a considerable margin. As I said before, the polling wasn't detailed enough to show that Trump would win by narrow margins in three key states that gave him a victory in the electoral college. Since more of the country preferred Hillary to Donald it makes perfect sense, especially given the many missteps and miscues, the combative and antagonistic approach, and the tendency to make up facts he likes and ignore facts he doesn't, that his popularity is low for a newly minted president. We already know how you feel. What we're wondering is whether there are any facts supporting what you believe. Have you any facts at all, or are your contributions to this thread going to consist only of you repeating your unsupported opinions over and over?--Percy

But I don't disbelieve Rasmussen. In the absence of information about how they conduct their poll I would withhold judgment, but Caffeine says Rasmussen polls people who say they intend to vote, while the Gallup methodology I read doesn't say anything about selecting on the basis of voting intent. That could account for the difference. We cannot too easily compare histories of the Gallup and Rasmussen polls because Rasmussen only goes back to 2003. This means we couldn't compare how Bush's (either one) or Clinton's or Reagan's first 30 days Rasmussen poll numbers compare to Trump's.But if you go to this Rasmussen webpage you can see that on February 17, 2009, just 30 days into his first administration Rasmussen gave Obama a +15 approval index, while today they're giving Trump a +2.So on what basis do you reject Gallup and accept Rasmussen? Anything factual, anything at all?--Percy

I'm just asking if there's any factual basis for your beliefs, and the answer is apparently not. You just believe what you like and damn the facts.As I said, the Rasmussen poll includes only people who intend to vote, while the Gallup poll does not. This could account for the difference. Trump is still very popular with his base, but his administration appears chaotic and disorganized, and Trump himself seems ignorant, impulsive, mean and inept. He has no experience in governing and it shows. To ignore it would be to ignore the elephant in the room, and so the media is not ignoring it. To paraphrase Harry Truman, the media isn't giving Trump hell. It's just that for Trump the truth is hell.--Percy

Except that I'm not a "Leftie". I'm neither a Republican or a Democrat. I'm a fiscal conservative and a social liberal. I like some of Trump's positions, like single payer health insurance, reducing corporate taxes, and eliminating the interest-to-long-term capital gains tax loop hole. What I'm against is having an impulsive, inexperienced, ignorant and mean-spirited person as president. There is evidence for this entire characterization, should evidence ever be something you're interested in discussing.--Percy

We're already familiar with your opinions. What you haven't provided is any facts underpinning what you believe. Your reluctance to discuss them can only be explained if no such facts exist, much like Trump and his many fact-free claims.--Percy

Jar spoke the truth and it bears repeating. No one here hates Trump. We have to live in this country, and we wish him every success in terms of doing what is best for our country and the world. We hope his policies result in economic prosperity, happiness, freedom and world peace.But little he's done looks like it will end well. You don't bake a cake by blowing up the kitchen, but in effect that's what he's trying to do. We all hope he wakes up tomorrow and becomes honest, humble, compassionate and grounded in reality, but we know that's unlikely - he's been who he is for a very long time.--Percy

Would that it were so that you've tried to provide facts. A couple days ago you stated your true position, that you weren't interested in facts and evidence ("demanding evidence belongs somewhere else", Message 56) and refused to provide support for your claims.--Percy

But that was your claim, that the Rasmussen poll was better than the Gallup poll. Again, you know this how?The alternative that was suggested to you is that there's a better way of looking at the polls. Caffeine and I explained several times that Gallup polled everyone while the Rasmussen polled those likely to vote, and that this could account for the difference. In other words both polls are valid, within their respective error margins. No you don't. The Democratic campaign and Clinton were running a human trafficking and child prostitution ring out of pizza shops across the US? Really? You have serious problems recognizing the absurd. That would be a lot easier if didn't keep popping our nonsense meters off the scale. Polls are a credible subject, Pizzagate is absurd. Do you have any fake news to discuss that isn't? I would be delighted if the subject were dropped.--Percy

I see that in your previous post you've got scare-tactic predictions, absurd claims that only the right knows what's best for the country, and statements that now it's a world-wide conspiracy against Trump and that they'll be sorry. I also see nothing about the topic, which is supposed to be fake polls and news. You have no comment about the information about the differences between the Rasmussen and Gallup polls? There's more conspiracy in the Constitution than those emails. It might be a good idea to drop the subject until there are facts other than "emails exist."--Percy

And you have so far given no examples of the mainstream liberal media (New York Times, Washington Post, CNN) concocting fake news. We do have examples of the conservative media doing it, like Pizzagate.I *do* think you're using a fake definition of fake news, because you seem to think it's any news that isn't favorable to Donald Trump. Wikipedia defines fake news as "deliberately published hoaxes, propaganda and disinformation purporting to be real news." Can you accept that definition, and then can you provide examples of the mainstream liberal media engaging in its practice?--Percy

If you mean Trump's charge of "fake news", then no, it isn't a claim that the mainstream media is posting hoaxes. As Wikipedia says, "fake news" is "deliberately published hoaxes, propaganda and disinformation purporting to be real news." What Trump means by "fake news" is something different and incorrect. By "fake news" Trump means news that is unfavorable to him, like that he didn't have the largest inauguration crowd in history, or that he didn't have the biggest electoral victory since Reagan, or that there wasn't a terrorist incidence in Sweden Friday night.Trump is clearly misusing the term "fake news". For example, at his first press conference he called CNN "fake news" for reporting that a former British intelligence agent had gathered a dossier on Trump that purportedly contained potentially salacious material, specifically noting that they had not been able to confirm the validity of the dossier. Nothing they said was false or fake. One could very reasonable argue that CNN should not have reported this without gaining reliable information about the dossier's contents, that short of that the story lacked significance, but one can't argue that they said anything false or fake.--Percy

Hi Faith,I appreciate the effort to try to post some evidence, but, well, I didn't see any example of "fake news" by the mainstream media in your post, the media that Trump has been castigating, the ones he mentioned in this tweet: And you can add the Washington Post to that list, Trump's omission of it was probably accidental."Fake news" from the mainstream media would be anything from one of these news outlets that is demonstrably false (to use Wikipedia's definition, a hoax, propaganda or disinformation) that they refuse to back away from and continue promoting. We don't mean actual reporting or wording that Trump doesn't like. We don't mean tweets. If you're truly being drowned in "fake news" every day then while reading or watching one of these mainstream media outlets just send us a post about it. Describe what was false and include a link to the article or the broadcast video.But as I said in my previous post, Trump (and you) are misusing the term "fake news." The mainstream media is not engaged in "fake news." They're just reporting facts that Trump wishes weren't true, like the news about the investigations into Russian connections. Whether Trump likes it or not, that these investigations are happening is a fact, and yet reporting about it is apparently what launched him on his cruise into nuttiness at last week's press conference.--Percy

You mean should we use the actual definition of "fake news" or the fake definition of "fake news?" I'm going to vote for the actual definition. I think Trump has set the standard for the threshold for what is false or fake, and that standard is the exact word you used: blatant. Trump claimed his inauguration drew the largest crowds in history, that his electoral college victory was the largest since Reagan, so that's the standard. Find examples of the mainstream media making similarly blatant false claims and then not backing away from them.--Percy