Do Americans Remember the Actual Trump Presidency? - Kilgore, New York Magazine
(snip)
No matter what you think of Donald Trump, there is zero doubt that two events during his presidency will forever leap off the pages of history books and dwarf anything else that happened: the outbreak of a pandemic that killed over a million Americans and a mob attack on the U.S. Capitol aimed at preventing Joe Bidens confirmation as president-elect. But when the New York Times/Siena polling outfit asked voters to describe the one thing they remembered most from Donald J. Trumps presidency, only 5 percent of respondents referred to Jan. 6, and only 4 percent to COVID. 39 percent cited Trumps behavior as most memorable, and another 24 percent named the economy.
(snip)
The Times own analysis of these rather startling numbers attributes them to recency bias, suggesting that voters are letting their current concerns (particularly about inflation) distort their memories of the not-so-distant past. But they also suggest that voters have formed a fixed opinion of Trump and his presidency that may be very difficult to change. If COVID and January 6 are not front of mind when voters think of 2020 and 2021, and the economy as it was in 2019 is recalled as Elysian, what does that say about the Biden campaigns efforts to remind people of Trumps responsibility for the reversal of Roe v. Wade? Will voters accept that a Very Bad Thing that happened long after Trump left office was actually his fault?
As it happens, a new survey of registered voters was released last week from Navigator Research showing that a sizable number of Americans, incredibly enough, held Biden responsible for the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the elimination of the federal right to an abortion. That opinion was held by 34 percent of self-identified independents, 32 percent of Black voters, and 42 percent of Hispanic voters. It helps explain why the Biden campaign is devoting so much energy to connecting the dots between Trumps Supreme Court appointments and the Dobbs decision. But it also suggests public perceptions of Trump are very hard to change, and thats a big problem for Democrats.
In the end, unless the mood of the electorate about current conditions in the country gets a lot sunnier, Bidens reelection prospects depend almost entirely on making this a comparative contest in which a plurality of voters firmly reject Trump based on what they know about the 45th president. You dont have to hate Trump to observe that he actually took his predecessors middling economy and did everything within his power to increase inequality, bungled the federal response to COVID-19 and worsened its human and economic impact, and then became the first losing presidential candidate since 1876 to refuse to concede defeat once the states certified his opponents victory. But if persuadable voters dismiss all that and think of him as a foulmouthed, erratic politician who nonetheless showered them with prosperity, then he will be hard to beat.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/do-americans-remember-the-actual-trump-presidency/ar-BB1mkhiD
Walleye
(33,941 posts)If only we had reporters to write what is actually going on, instead of pundits trying to predict whats going to happen
Bristlecone
(10,350 posts)Fighting over toilet paper and refrigerator trucks with the dead stacked like lumber. Will never forget that monsters gross negligence. This is but a small sample.
no_hypocrisy
(48,062 posts)Like memories of my father.
I remember and I re-live.
AllaN01Bear
(22,410 posts)DownriverDem
(6,470 posts)worried. It's not just I don't want him. It's trump will destroy the country. Folks have to see that white repubs want a white country. They want to drag us back to the 1950s. I just can't believe this could happen.
Evolve Dammit
(18,001 posts)Very well informed. The other half either dont want to know or cant be bothered. Long as you got a big tee vee and a sack of cheetos, Americans can be in their happy place.
sop
(11,078 posts)These days Americans' political affiliation is determined by how intelligent and informed they are. There's no other explanation.
karin_sj
(1,030 posts)And I do not trust the Times anymore. In fact, all of these polls that have Biden and the Orange Turd running neck and neck seem totally unbelievable to me. Maybe I'm a hopeless optimist, but I believe that far more people will vote against Trump than for him. And I believe that they do remember the pandemic and the insurrection and that will be a huge part of their decision.
Response to karin_sj (Reply #8)
Chin music This message was self-deleted by its author.
birdographer
(2,185 posts)are the extreme embarrassment of being an American. His pushing world leaders aside to stand in front of them. His sitting alone at tables while others socialize behind him. His wandering off a stage where he was to address an audience. So many more. Just the constant humiliation of living in a country where he is the president.
bmichaelh
(536 posts)I remember Trump.
Personally, I may NOT survive another Trump presidency.
Currently, I am in my third remission of lymphoma.
I was first diagnosed some 35 years ago.
I am in maintenance treatments for lymphoma that cost approximately 1 million a year.
If he repeals ACA with a compliant Senate and Congress, maintenance treatments would probably stop.
Each time, lymphoma returns it gets more aggressive and previous treatments do not work.
When it returned in 2019 after 2 years of Trump's attempted repeal, four different types of treatments failed.
Luckily, we found a treatment that work.
There is more detailed history and I plan on posting this perhaps on Twitter sometime in the fall.
It might cost me my job.
My supervisor does not like Biden.
question everything
(48,460 posts)repealing the ACA from their platform but a vengeful Whiny might revive it just because.
We can only hope.
markodochartaigh
(1,702 posts)is that, sooner or later, the voters will get the government that they deserve. Ignorance and apathy are the Achilles' heels of democracy and for many Americans political ignorance and apathy are considered virtues.
The Mouth
(3,252 posts)No matter how much the left talks about 'record corporate profits' or greedy CEOs, what it comes down to is that it now costs 2-3 times as much to fill up a big work truck and the same bag of groceries costs one HELL of a lot more than the twaddle coming from any government agency says inflation should account for.
The Biden administration has 4-6 months to understand: gas needs to be below $2 a gallon, we need to be drilling, building new natural gas plants, planning nuke plants, and getting rid of any planned regulations that make a single damned thing more expensive. No matter the 'cost' to people with other priorities than the economy.
The economy is more important than *all* other issues, from racism, to climate change, to Gaza - put together and squared. Anyone is free to disagree, but they might as well work a phone bank for Trump and buy a dozen MAGA hats or Trump bibles for friends and family if they do.
IT'S THE ECONOMY.
question everything
(48,460 posts)I hope that the infrastructure bill that passed two years ago is being implemented now. To point at new bridges and better roads and to put signs reporting. I kinda remember similar signs when Obama passed a smaller bill.
Will be nice to point to someone and to ask how much they paid for basic items and that even though the items are more expensive the purchasing power is the same.
I wonder whether such information is available.
SomedayKindaLove
(845 posts)People often vote their wallets/pocketbooks.
The problem with Biden is hes saying the economy is great with the stock market and higher wages, but the reality is most people dont have stocks. They see higher prices everywhere and think Trump will make things inexpensive again.
Xenophobia and inflation are looking like Rs ticket to the White House. And if Im not mistaken thats how Hitler rose to power.
Skittles
(157,026 posts)doesn't matter if DOW is 40,000 if you don't have stocks and are being squeezed by ever-rising prices
progree
(11,449 posts)I don't know if this is in reference to the common myth that the government inflation stats (CPI, PCE, PPI) don't include gasoline and food. They do. And in proportion to the amount purchased.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm
nowforever
(377 posts)His minions are fixated on Donald's incoherent rantings, so his repeating "The economy was greatest ever" resonates in their heads and it then becomes a truth. And you really cannot fix stupid.
poozwah
(232 posts)amnesia and masochism combined with apathy may very well give us a 2nd trump term. this country is going to heil.
samsingh
(17,739 posts)LudwigPastorius
(10,350 posts)intheflow
(28,788 posts)Hermit-The-Prog
(36,145 posts)Or, to look at it another way, such polls are corporate news' means of seeing if they are getting their intended message across to their intended targets.
Oligarchs prefer an oligarchy.
SWBTATTReg
(23,556 posts)to him 24x7.
Then, besides the golf, that's it. He didn't really do anything else. He's lazy. Always was.
YoshidaYui
(42,315 posts)@$$#0(E
Initech
(101,118 posts)Fuck Fox.
Skittles
(157,026 posts)Initech
(101,118 posts)Seriously, like all of our current woes can be traced back to that POS network somehow.
SomedayKindaLove
(845 posts)It seems like a whisper in a shouting chamber.
Rs own radio, TV and X and they send group emails to friends that George Soros is spending 80 million dollars to censor them (that was the BIG breaking news yesterday afternoon, picked up by EVERY right-winged news outlet. I only heard about it because a MAGAite includes me in his emails. The big news in the AM was that 148 Democrats voted against deporting migrants who assault cops. Fox, Yahoo, Newsweek were happy to provide a list of every Dem who voted against. A complete dog and pony vote. Never mind that with all the migrants in the country there is one story of migrants assaulting cops. More cops were assaulted during the Trump picnic on January 6th (as the right like to portray it).
Rs dont seem interested in governing, or arent very good at it. Red states have lower life expectancies, higher crime rates per capita, and more chronic illnesses. One thing Rs do know how to do is manipulate the masses. Keep telling the same lies over and over and over and it eventually becomes the truth. Dems say something once and think the point will get across or that they have won the issue. It doesnt work that way anymore. Theres more than 3 channels now.
There are very dark forces in America that wants Trump to be President again. The only way to beat him is a huge turnout. Vote and get someone else leaning or who usually doesnt vote to vote as well.
Marthe48
(18,383 posts)And I remind people if they seem to forget.
Xipe Totec
(44,000 posts)Aussie105
(5,992 posts)Some future historian will write a big tome about this part of American history.
Chapters dealing with the pre-Trump years, chapters on the Trump presidency, chapters on America after Trump.
But this saga isn't finished yet, not until Trump has been irrevocably removed from politics, and the GOP learns to stand on its own two feet, and become socially acceptable again.
It's going to be compulsory reading for generations to come.
Working title:
How America avoided becoming another Russia.
or
Saving the Republic from Dictatorship.
tclambert
(11,121 posts)one where Trump saved us from a deep recession caused by Barack Obama, created a record number of jobs (largely due to the pandemic they don't remember, he actually lost jobs), cut THEIR taxes, not just the taxes of the super-rich, and reduced the federal deficit. They also think that Joe Biden is making the economy much, much worse.
And you can't point out the truth to them because any debunking of their hero's claims is just "fake news." Fantasy is so much easier than actually checking facts. And believing in total nonsense just proves the power of their faith.