“U r an idiot.”
Of 20 or so emails I received from Donald Trump supporters in the past week, this one from Michael J. Coldiron was the most concise.
The story provoking the responses looked at a new Southern California poll — in which nearly half of the 800 respondents said the president was “making America worse” — and placed that in the context of historical nationwide Gallup polling on other presidents’ first 100 days in office.
I had written that Trump took office with the lowest approval rating (45 percent) since Gallup began polling the 100-day question. with Dwight Eisenhower. The front-page article said Trump was on track not only to post the lowest rating at the 100-day mark of any president, but that he also was likely to see the biggest drop in approval ratings since being sworn into office.
“At some point you might stop being so biased and act like a journalist,” suggested Luan Fogg. “Not all of us fell into a depression or spend our days crying over the election.”
My article noted that 23 percent of Southern Californians polled by SurveyUSA News thought Trump was on his way to “making America great again,” but some Trump supporters didn’t feel they were adequately represented. Not helping matters, I suspect, was my listing of the presidents’ failed effort at reforming healthcare laws and the courts’ blockage of his travel bans. In trying to explain why his numbers dropped, I also enumerated administration picks who either resigned, were fired or dropped out of the running.
“I wonder if writers like you … are allowed to write about the positive things Trump has accomplished,” wrote K.R. McClelland, who went on to cite the praise of Fox News’ Sean Hannity for Trump’s efforts with Israel, China, fighting terrorism and for Trump’s plans to cut taxes.
Steve Gasparro also saw bias and pointed to Trump’s Supreme Court nomination of Neil Gorsuch as evidence of success.
“The selection of Supreme Justice (sic) Gorsuch was a Grand-Slam,” Gasparro wrote. “It would be nice to give the president a chance like America did with President Obama.”
My story pointed out that Gorsuch’s confirmation was possible only because Republicans changed the rules to avoid a Democratic filibuster. It also pointed out that the farthest a president had ever fallen in Gallup’s 100-day approval ratings was 3 percentage points — and that Obama was among those who experienced a 3-point drop.
Let me note that I’m using the names that accompanied the emails although I was unable to immediately verify the identities of all but a few.
And, for the record, I don’t feel pressure or encouragement from my bosses to favor one side over the other. I write for all our readers, across the spectrum — not to reinforce their political positions but to provide them with information that’s as accurate as possible from all sides of an issue. I particularly think of the average non-partisan who might actually watch both Fox News and MSNBC.
‘More fake news’
“Same polls predicted Democrat victory,” wrote Jimmy Honaker. “More Fake News.”
Honaker wasn’t alone in pointing out that most pre-election polls showed Trump losing last November.
Since McClelland had countered my story by pointing to Fox News reporting, I asked if he bought into the Fox News polls. They showed Trump at 43-percent approval rating in mid-March and 45 percent in a poll done this past week — a few points higher than Gallup, but still record lows.
“I don’t think any of this is 100% truthful,” he wrote back.
Two readers pointed to an April 25 analysis of an ABC-Washington Post poll that showed Trump would beat Hillary Clinton today, 43 percent to 40 percent. Neither mentioned that the same poll had Trump at a 42-percent approval.
Several of those writing didn’t attack me or the polls results, but simply aired their frustration. Some of that frustration targeted poll respondents.
“Did the survey people explain to them they are idiots?” wrote someone identifying themselves only as Toni.
One last statistic:
Nationwide, the Washington Post found that just 2 percent regretted voting for Trump and SurveyUSA reported that only 5 percent of Trump’s Southern California voters wished they’d cast a ballot for someone else or wished they hadn’t voted at all.
In other words, those who voted for Trump overwhelmingly remain loyal to him.
At least if you believe the polls.
