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Isn't it always the case that the President has "disapproval" ratings around 50% though? Half the country tends to like the person they voted for, and half the

Isn't it always the case that the President has "disapproval" ratings around 50% though? Half the country tends to like the person they voted for, and half the country has sour grapes because their side lost. Obama's disapproval ratings also hovered above 50% at several points in his Presidency [1]. So it isn't Trump's "disapproval" ratings that are new for any President, it's the level of hatred that the press has for Trump that is new and allows for their spin on everything he does to "...be made alarming" as you put it. Look no further than HuffPo for your ridiculous daily press alarm. Obama was right in the same range in terms of disapproval, you just heard less about it because he was very popular among the types of people that tend to become reporters. [1] http://news.gallup.com/poll/116479/barack-obama-presidential-job-approval.aspx http://news.gallup.com/poll/116479/barack-obama-presidential...

s2g 9y ago
Not really, and especially not so early. Trump is historically unpopular.
lazyasciiart 9y ago
Trump's disapproval ratings are very different to the usual ratings at the start of a presidency, which tend to be higher, and Obama's average rating was higher than Trump's highest ever rating (even Obama's lowest ratings are about the same as that). It is just nonsense to pretend that Trump's ratings are "right in the same range" as Obama. http://news.gallup.com/interactives/185273/presidential-job-approval-center.aspx http://news.gallup.com/interactives/185273/presidential-job-...?
- downandout 9y ago
  Were Obama’s disapproval ratings not always in the 40-55% range, which are right where Trump’s are? The data suggests they were. Considering how laughably biased the media has been against Trump, relative to the exact opposite treatment that Obama had, he’s actually doing amazingly well in this regard. I think Trump has made a tremendous number of mistakes, but just going by the numbers, he seems to holding better than Obama ever did given the headwinds he faces. My guess is Obama’s disapproval rating would have started off far higher too if Republicans were rioting in the streets and claimed cheating in the wake of his election. But Republicans didn’t do that, and took a considerably higher road than Democrats have done since Trump’s election. It has been shocking and terribly disappointing to see how poorly Democrats reacted to losing, and that poor sportsmanship is still playing out. It turns out that the “party of tolerance” is only tolerant of those in its own party.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Were Obama’s disapproval ratings not always in the 40-55% range, which are right where Trump’s are? No, they were not always in that range, and that's a huge range; the only time Trump has been anywhere near 40% is the initial honeymoon phase, where Obama was in the 20s. > My guess is Obama’s disapproval rating would have started off far higher too if Republicans were rioting in the streets and claimed cheating in the wake of his election. Yes, mass protests tend to be a symptom of widespread and strong opposition (another sign of widespread opposition is getting fewer votes than the other major party candidate; George W. Bush had the same problem, and started with the same poor numbers as Trump; unlike Trump, he managed to improve them to more typical early first term numbers quite quickly, even before the post-9/11 rally around the flag effect.)
    - downandout 9y ago
      No, they were not always in that range, and that's a huge range They weren’t always there, but they certainly wound up there as his Presidency dragged on and things like Obamacare began to hit people’s wallets. Where it wound up is what matters, as people can’t disapprove of things that haven’t happened yet (except in Trump’s case, where some Democrats were calling for impeachment before he was inaugurated). Yes, mass protests tend to be a symptom of widespread and strong opposition The protests were driven by the media’s response, which were unlike anything that any candidate has faced before. The media was furious that they were unable to influence the election for Hillary, and then they realized that they could profit from the polarization. With enough negative media coverage, anything can sound like a big problem to those that allow the media to shape their opinions.
      - Flenser 9y ago
        Here's a graph for disapproval ratings for both of them. See for yourself: https://i.imgur.com/5dk3lWg.png https://i.imgur.com/5dk3lWg.png
  - pjc50 9y ago
    > claimed cheating in the wake of his election You're forgetting the birthirism, the claim that Obama was ineligible for the presidency because he was born abroad, complete with theatrical demands for his birth certificate.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> Isn't it always the case that the President has "disapproval" ratings around 50% though? No, it's not. From the source cited upthread, here's what other Presidents had at the same point in their Presidency as Trump's current 53.6% disapproval: Obama: 45.3% Bush 43: 17.6% Clinton: 40.2% Bush 41: 15.3% Reagan: 45.0% Carter: 34.5% Ford: 38.6% Nixon: 31.4% Johnson: 15.1% Kennedy: 12.0% Eisenhower: 22.2% Truman: 45.1%
- downandout 9y ago
  Still, factoring in the unprecedented liberal media headwinds faces by Trump, I’d say his numbers are amazingly good and still within the range of Obama’s after Obamacare began hitting people’s wallets. That’s either scary or good, depending on your political leanings I suppose.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Still, factoring in the unprecedented liberal media headwinds faces by Trump, I’d say his numbers are amazingly good That's true in the sense that it's true that Nixon's outgoing numbers were pretty good given the time of the media coverage at the time; there's not a lot of evidence, though, that measuring support relative to media coverage produces any kind of useful information.
    - downandout 9y ago
      there's not a lot of evidence, though, that measuring support relative to media coverage produces any kind of useful information. There are studies proving that the media does in fact have an effect on overall opinion. So if you believe those studies, then you have to also believe that the overwhelmingly negative media attention received by Trump would have an effect on his disapproval ratings.
  - nl 9y ago
    You keep saying this, but it's just not true. Obama got to 55+% disapproval rating twice, in two single polls (3 Dec 2013 and 2 Aug 2014). His yearly average disapproval ratings were 36, 47, 47, 48, 52, 50, 46%. Trump has spent roughly 30% of his time above 55%. RCP doesn't have yearly rates up, but it's pretty clear they are much worse than Obamas. factoring in the unprecedented liberal media headwinds faces by Trump It seems to me the only thing keeping any kind of approval at all for Trump is his attacks on the media. It seems to me that fighting with the media is the only thing keeping him below 60% disapproval.
dang 9y ago
Could you please not take HN threads on partisan political tangents? I'm not sure exactly at which point we went off the rails here but your account appears to have done the largest part. It also looks like you've been using HN primarily for political battle. That's not what this site is for, and we ban accounts that do it. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16402648 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16402648.
- downandout 9y ago
  The notion that my data-based response to someone else’s political comment is a “political battle” is absurd. Now you’re threatening to ban my account because I brought up a fact that happens to disagree with an incredibly liberal-skewed comment? There are many other accounts that consistently engage in the political discussions on this site, but it’s odd that I haven’t seen public threats to ban those. I’ve seen some downright hostile political comments from many accounts - but again I’ve only seen 1 publicly posted ban threat. It seems that the political tangents are just fine, as long as they are liberal-leaning. Futher, if you look at the entire universe of my comments, maybe 1% of them have anything to do with politics (and again they aren’t the rants that most accounts are allowed to go on without the threat of banishment - they usually have references and data to back them up). If you do ban my account, you would essentially be sending the message that it’s ok to discuss political matters here, but your view on those better be leftist or you’ll face a ban.

s2g 9y ago

Not really, and especially not so early. Trump is historically unpopular.

lazyasciiart 9y ago

Trump's disapproval ratings are very different to the usual ratings at the start of a presidency, which tend to be higher, and Obama's average rating was higher than Trump's highest ever rating (even Obama's lowest ratings are about the same as that). It is just nonsense to pretend that Trump's ratings are "right in the same range" as Obama. http://news.gallup.com/interactives/185273/presidential-job-approval-center.aspx http://news.gallup.com/interactives/185273/presidential-job-...?

downandout 9y ago
Were Obama’s disapproval ratings not always in the 40-55% range, which are right where Trump’s are? The data suggests they were. Considering how laughably biased the media has been against Trump, relative to the exact opposite treatment that Obama had, he’s actually doing amazingly well in this regard. I think Trump has made a tremendous number of mistakes, but just going by the numbers, he seems to holding better than Obama ever did given the headwinds he faces. My guess is Obama’s disapproval rating would have started off far higher too if Republicans were rioting in the streets and claimed cheating in the wake of his election. But Republicans didn’t do that, and took a considerably higher road than Democrats have done since Trump’s election. It has been shocking and terribly disappointing to see how poorly Democrats reacted to losing, and that poor sportsmanship is still playing out. It turns out that the “party of tolerance” is only tolerant of those in its own party.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Were Obama’s disapproval ratings not always in the 40-55% range, which are right where Trump’s are? No, they were not always in that range, and that's a huge range; the only time Trump has been anywhere near 40% is the initial honeymoon phase, where Obama was in the 20s. > My guess is Obama’s disapproval rating would have started off far higher too if Republicans were rioting in the streets and claimed cheating in the wake of his election. Yes, mass protests tend to be a symptom of widespread and strong opposition (another sign of widespread opposition is getting fewer votes than the other major party candidate; George W. Bush had the same problem, and started with the same poor numbers as Trump; unlike Trump, he managed to improve them to more typical early first term numbers quite quickly, even before the post-9/11 rally around the flag effect.)
  - downandout 9y ago
    No, they were not always in that range, and that's a huge range They weren’t always there, but they certainly wound up there as his Presidency dragged on and things like Obamacare began to hit people’s wallets. Where it wound up is what matters, as people can’t disapprove of things that haven’t happened yet (except in Trump’s case, where some Democrats were calling for impeachment before he was inaugurated). Yes, mass protests tend to be a symptom of widespread and strong opposition The protests were driven by the media’s response, which were unlike anything that any candidate has faced before. The media was furious that they were unable to influence the election for Hillary, and then they realized that they could profit from the polarization. With enough negative media coverage, anything can sound like a big problem to those that allow the media to shape their opinions.
    - Flenser 9y ago
      Here's a graph for disapproval ratings for both of them. See for yourself: https://i.imgur.com/5dk3lWg.png https://i.imgur.com/5dk3lWg.png
- pjc50 9y ago
  > claimed cheating in the wake of his election You're forgetting the birthirism, the claim that Obama was ineligible for the presidency because he was born abroad, complete with theatrical demands for his birth certificate.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> Isn't it always the case that the President has "disapproval" ratings around 50% though? No, it's not. From the source cited upthread, here's what other Presidents had at the same point in their Presidency as Trump's current 53.6% disapproval: Obama: 45.3% Bush 43: 17.6% Clinton: 40.2% Bush 41: 15.3% Reagan: 45.0% Carter: 34.5% Ford: 38.6% Nixon: 31.4% Johnson: 15.1% Kennedy: 12.0% Eisenhower: 22.2% Truman: 45.1%

downandout 9y ago
Still, factoring in the unprecedented liberal media headwinds faces by Trump, I’d say his numbers are amazingly good and still within the range of Obama’s after Obamacare began hitting people’s wallets. That’s either scary or good, depending on your political leanings I suppose.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Still, factoring in the unprecedented liberal media headwinds faces by Trump, I’d say his numbers are amazingly good That's true in the sense that it's true that Nixon's outgoing numbers were pretty good given the time of the media coverage at the time; there's not a lot of evidence, though, that measuring support relative to media coverage produces any kind of useful information.
  - downandout 9y ago
    there's not a lot of evidence, though, that measuring support relative to media coverage produces any kind of useful information. There are studies proving that the media does in fact have an effect on overall opinion. So if you believe those studies, then you have to also believe that the overwhelmingly negative media attention received by Trump would have an effect on his disapproval ratings.
- nl 9y ago
  You keep saying this, but it's just not true. Obama got to 55+% disapproval rating twice, in two single polls (3 Dec 2013 and 2 Aug 2014). His yearly average disapproval ratings were 36, 47, 47, 48, 52, 50, 46%. Trump has spent roughly 30% of his time above 55%. RCP doesn't have yearly rates up, but it's pretty clear they are much worse than Obamas. factoring in the unprecedented liberal media headwinds faces by Trump It seems to me the only thing keeping any kind of approval at all for Trump is his attacks on the media. It seems to me that fighting with the media is the only thing keeping him below 60% disapproval.

dang 9y ago

Could you please not take HN threads on partisan political tangents? I'm not sure exactly at which point we went off the rails here but your account appears to have done the largest part. It also looks like you've been using HN primarily for political battle. That's not what this site is for, and we ban accounts that do it. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16402648 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16402648.

downandout 9y ago
The notion that my data-based response to someone else’s political comment is a “political battle” is absurd. Now you’re threatening to ban my account because I brought up a fact that happens to disagree with an incredibly liberal-skewed comment? There are many other accounts that consistently engage in the political discussions on this site, but it’s odd that I haven’t seen public threats to ban those. I’ve seen some downright hostile political comments from many accounts - but again I’ve only seen 1 publicly posted ban threat. It seems that the political tangents are just fine, as long as they are liberal-leaning. Futher, if you look at the entire universe of my comments, maybe 1% of them have anything to do with politics (and again they aren’t the rants that most accounts are allowed to go on without the threat of banishment - they usually have references and data to back them up). If you do ban my account, you would essentially be sending the message that it’s ok to discuss political matters here, but your view on those better be leftist or you’ll face a ban.