OPINION | Trump is a fake president and his base is starting to agree

A recent widely reported Quinnipiac poll shows President Trump’s favorable rating has fallen to 33 percent, suggesting that the Trump base is shrinking along with his dismal approval rating among all voters.

Tuesday, there is a new, equally ominous poll from Investor’s Business Daily showing that Trump’s approval rating had fallen to 32 percent.

{mosads}Even the Trump base is beginning to turn against him, because these voters increasingly realize, as other voters realized long ago, that President Trump is a fake president who does not protect their interests as he claims.

Trump’s problem is not “fake polls,” which present accurate data proving that, after 200 days in office, he is arguably the most disliked, disapproved of and distrusted president in history.

Even the Trump base increasingly realizes that Trump’s problem is not “fake news,” which tells the true story of a president who “manages” a White House staff at war with itself, while prominent Republicans make regular trips to primary states to test the waters for 2020 and grand juries continue investigations. 

Trump’s problem is that so many voters, including a growing number in his base, conclude his presidency is fake. Only a fake president would spend so much time watching cable television and so little time learning about policies like healthcare.

Only a fake president would spend so much time writing tweets about himself and those he hates. Only a fake president could spend so much time on the golf course and going from Trump properties to Trump resorts without passing even one major piece of legislation during the first seven months of his presidency — with a Congress his party controls.

Think about it. A Republican president governing with a Republican House and Senate has lost every major legislative battle in his first 200 days. No wonder a growing number of voters in the Trump base, like a majority of all voters, are concluding that Trump is running a fake presidency that does little for them but does much that hurts them, like his stance on healthcare.

And think about this: Trump has named a number of highly respected generals to senior positions, but many of them disagree with him on many key national security issues. Rumors are running rampant that one or more of them will soon resign or be fired.

There is not one of Trump’s generals, nor one of his Cabinet members, who agrees with his refusal to unequivocally state the obvious truth that Russia intervened in the 2016 campaign for the purpose of electing him.

The fake president, who never served in the military himself, attacks the military record of a Democratic senator who did.

Even Kellyanne Conway, who famously champions alternative facts, admits the real fact that many in the Trump base are beginning to reject his presidency.

Hopefully, Trump’s new chief of staff, retired Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly, can moderate the president’s tendency to utter false information in ludicrous tweets and turn his attention to governing the nation instead of watching television during work hours and falsely attacking the media.

Perhaps Trump will do something he has not done in the first 200 days of his presidency, which is to make the transition from being a television star with a widely disapproving audience to a true president who learns about real policies on real issues that affect real people and governs accordingly.

Trump should stop acting like a fake president. He should stop moving from golf courses on Trump resorts to drumming up business for Trump hotels. He should stop making fake accusations against real news and making false arguments against real polls.

The longer Trump continues to act like a fake president who divides the country and increasingly alienates his base, the more trips that will be taken by leading Republicans, including Vice President Pence, to primary states that may well determine the post-Trump presidency after the 2020 elections, if not sooner.

Brent Budowsky was an aide to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas) and former Rep. Bill Alexander (D-Ark.), then-chief deputy majority whip of the House. He holds an LL.M. in international financial law from the London School of Economics. 

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