Morning Glory: Trump’s approval ratings have never been higher

Forbes magazine recently reported that “President-elect Donald Trump’s popularity has reached its highest level in seven years, and a majority of Americans approve of his handling of the transition.” “The majority of CNN/SSRS respondents The poll was released They said Wednesday they believe Trump will do a good job when he returns to the White House next month (54%), and they approve of how he has handled the transition so far (55%).

These numbers contrast sharply with what they were eight years ago When Donald Trump He was “president-elect” the first time. The Pew Research Center conducted a national survey from November 30-December. On October 5, 2016, it found that of 1,502 adults surveyed at the time, only 40% approved of Trump’s Cabinet picks and high-level appointments, while 41% approved of the job he has done so far in explaining his policies And his plans for the future. “.

It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, but the level of approval today is sharply higher than it was eight years ago. The big and important question is: why?

The easy and perhaps very obvious answer is that President-elect Trump 2.0 is not President Joe Biden, while President-elect Trump 1.0 was not President Barack Obama.

Obama left the White House – again using Pew’s numbers – with a job approval rating slightly lower than that of Presidents Reagan and Clinton when they left. Pew told us eight years ago that “58% approve of[Obama’s]job performance, while 37% disapprove.”

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Biden’s approval rating in late November of this year — turning to Gallup this time — was 37%, and some of that sampling came before widespread criticism of Hunter Biden’s pardon by Joe Biden. Could Biden back down further? definitely.

So “not being Biden” (or Vice President Kamala Harris for that matter) helps former President Trump’s numbers.

But this is not the explanation from my point of view. 55% may represent a new “ceiling” for approval for all new presidents in our deeply divided nation these days, but why did Trump’s approval numbers rise from 40% eight years ago to his approval rating today?

A majority of small businesses expect revenues to rise during Trump’s first year

There are two additional possible explanations other than “it’s not Joe or Kamala.”

First, Trump’s 2016 revolt was shocking, even painful, to the Manhattan-Beltway media and political elites. I know this firsthand from being on the set of NBC’s Election Night Coverage of 30 Rock eight years ago. As events unfolded on that memorable night in 2016, it was more than just a surprise that swept the NBC studios. It was the thunderclap of a reality that a legacy news organization never knew could happen, and it left a newsroom stunned and in disbelief in its wake. (Two floors of newsrooms, in fact, with MSNBC being one floor lower than NBC’s Election Night News set.) Much of the trauma and pain among the old media elites has become a kind of “transmitted pain” among the population at large. The country was shocked as the major media was shocked in 2016, and as anger and disbelief spread through the legacy media, much of the country swayed with those elites.

How bad is this Trump presidency? Media elites had not really considered the possibility of Trump winning, and so what they said or implied that night was internalized out loud, or via appearance or body language. Platform owners — at least the vast majority of them among legacy outlets — immediately concluded that a Trump presidency would be terrible for the country, and their collective passion sent stock futures tumbling. The markets quickly regained their balance, but not the psychology of the media elites in Manhattan and the Beltway. The onset of “Trump derangement syndrome” was instantaneous. Until Trump’s surprise victory last November, the TDS problem worsened.

Trump had not spent a single night in D.C. this time in eight years, and the shock of his 2016 victory was followed by prophecies of doom from the usual suspects that never let up, and the “resistance” had already taken up stops in the media. The “Pink Berets” were booking their flights to Trump’s inauguration the day after the counter-demonstration. “Hillary was supposed to win, dammit,” and when she didn’t, media elites and the political left went so far as to convince America that Trump was, at best, completely corrupt and perhaps authoritarian. Eight years later, after endless investigations and years of legal warfare, it turns out that the majority of Americans don’t buy what the old media is selling anymore.

But that’s not all either. Trump’s previous highest approval rating until the new “honeymoon season” of 2024 was 49% — and that number was only reached at the start of 2020, as three years of low taxes and deregulation combined with rising energy production made America… She cooked with gas…until Covid hit.

That Trump now has 55% of the vote is nothing short of amazing, as the past five years since then have been an eventful 49%.

President-elect Donald Trump reacts during his meeting with Prince William, Prince of Wales at the United Kingdom Embassy on December 7, 2024 in Paris, France. (Oleg Nikishin/Getty Images)

The events themselves, not January 6, and especially not the catastrophic failures that occurred Biden presidencyExplaining Trump’s leap. Comparing 45 and 47 to an incompetent and failed president certainly helps Trump, as does a collapse in trust in the old media and perhaps a return to a norm of good wishes for the next president. The media is no longer as hysterical as it was eight years ago.

Rather, Trump’s new approval rating is due to Trump, wait for it.

The reality is that people now have a side-by-side comparison between a government under a property developer and a reckless TV star fueled by superlatives and big goals versus the prospect of further left-directed decline coupled with a forced shift. For EVs and boys playing girls’ sports. America got a heavy dose of the “United States of Europe” versus the United States of America, and it turns out we prefer the latter. We like our presidents to be patriotic, optimistic, and full of friendliness.

Don’t mistake my meaning. The old Manhattan-Beltway media elites were shocked by Trump’s victory and once again felt extremely angry, even angry, but the public’s willingness to share the indicated pain with those elites had declined sharply. Having lost the public’s trust in an almost incomprehensible but very comprehensive way, the mutterings of journalists are not only of great importance, they are actually helping Trump get off to a good start in his second presidency.

Most of America has simply excluded legacy media from its conversation about Trump. Old media is no longer trusted. Does he hate Trump? so what? The collective influence of the legacy media is now less than that of the “public health authorities,” and this is at an all-time low.

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My suggestion: Trump is more popular today than ever before because Americans love optimism, and Trump doesn’t just sell hope, he believes in it. Combine that affection for an elected leader who believes in the country and its fundamental goodness with the collapse of the credibility of Trump’s critics and the disasters of the Biden years, and you get 55% instead of 40%.

The only question left to answer is how much higher can this number rise when Trump commits to borders, rebuilds defense, returns deregulation, and extends the Trump tax cuts? If you wish the country well, you should hope that Trump’s numbers, like those in the markets, continue to rise.

Hugh Hewitt is the host of “The Hugh Hewitt Show,” heard weekday mornings from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on the Salem News Channel. Hugh America wakes up on more than 400 affiliates nationwide, and on all streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Roundtable hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6pm ET. An Ohio native and graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a professor of law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996, where he teaches constitutional law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has appeared frequently on every major national television news network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major U.S. newspaper, authored dozens of books and ran a host of Republican programs. Candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-2016 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and column on the Constitution, national security, American politics, and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests, from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over 40 years of broadcasting, and this column explores the key stories that will drive his radio/TV show today.

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