Politico: Democrats Panicked by Teflon Don
< < Go Back
RUSH: There is a story today in The Politico. “Teflon Don Confounds Democrats — Democrats have attacked the president every which way, but polling and focus groups show none of it’s working.” None of it! In addition, Rasmussen has just come out with a poll. I printed it out here (shuffling paper) and guess what? A majority, most voters… Not Trump supporters; they’re in this, but this is a sample of most voters. “Most Voters Welcome Trump’s Outreach to Congressional Democrats.” Now, the conventional wisdom is that Trump’s hurting himself, that Trump’s base, who are they?
The Republicans are not helping him get anything done. So now he went to working with the Democrats and Rasmussen’s gone out and polled it.
They have found out “66% of likely U.S. voters say it is good for the country if Trump works with congressional Democrats to advance his agenda. Just 13% think that the bipartisan cooperation” i.e., Trump working with Democrats “is bad. Twenty-one percent are undecided.” Now, likely voters is not a precise sample. You really want registered voters. Likely voters doesn’t include people that definitely do vote, and so what they think doesn’t matter as much, if they’re only likely to vote.
But you have a pool of registered voters, likely voters, there’s more guarantee that that is a better sample. And only 19% here believe the president should continue to rely on congressional Republicans to pass his agenda.
Sixty-six percent of the American people are fine with Trump reaching out to Democrats. One of the factors here is that Trump really does appear to be Teflon. I mean, no matter what, it just doesn’t stick to him. It’s what the Democrats said about Reagan, and they hated Reagan for that. No matter what he did, nothing stuck to him.
Now, The Politico story: “Teflon Don Confounds Democrats — Democrats have attacked the president every which way, but polling and focus groups show that none of it is working.” None of it! Trump should have been…
I don’t think there is a modern American president… Nixon, maybe, during the confined period of Watergate. Outside of that, I don’t think there is a president, certainly in our lifetimes. I mean, it was brutal back in the days of the Civil War, the journalism. But I don’t think there’s a president in our lifetimes who has been the subject of a never-ending, 24/7 assault since the day he won his party’s nomination, then the election. I don’t think anybody has had to go through what Trump has gone through.
Just the daily lies, the distortions, the rumors, the leaks, the untruths, the allegations that his election was illegitimate because of collaboration/collusion with the Russians and Vladimir Putin. I mean, it’s never ending, and they go with something until it dies and they pick something else up and they go back to the Russians and get distracted. There’s a special prosecutor. They’ve invested everything! They’ve shot everything they have, and he’s still sitting there with an approval of 45 to 48%.
They were able to knock George Bush’s number down into the thirties with four consecutive years of pounding Bush on the Iraq war. So what’s the difference? Why are they not able…? Why is it bouncing off Trump? Why is it not working? Well, there’s an answer, I think, but first some of the details in the story. It’s written by Edward-Isaac Dovere. “Democrats tried attacking Donald Trump as unfit for the presidency. They’ve made the case that he’s ineffective, pointing to his failure to sign a single major piece of legislation into law after eight months in the job.
“They’ve argued that Trump is using the presidency to enrich himself and that his campaign was in cahoots with Russia. None of it is working. Data from a range of focus groups and internal polls in swing states paint a difficult picture for the Democratic Party heading into the 2018 midterms and 2020 presidential election.” But it’s important. The Democrats, until they read this… Actually, in their private moments — cloakrooms, when they talk to each — they know it isn’t working, and I guarantee you they’re befuddled and they’re confused and they don’t understand.
That’s why they’re piling on. They think, “Maybe we’re not hitting him hard enough,” and they ratchet it up. But in their less-than-lucid moments, they really… I think some of them really believe they’re skating now to 2018. I think they believe that they have ruined Trump, and they’ve destroyed Trump and his ability to campaign, raise money for other people, other Republicans. They have the ability to lie to themselves and pat themselves on the back.
But the truth of the matter is that none of this — and this is their playbook. They have not gone after Trump on policy. They’ve not tried to say that their policies are better, ’cause they don’t have any that they want to publicize. It’s been purely personal.
Now, remember, these are Democrat polls, Democrat analysts telling Politico what they’re finding, and they are finding that none of their attacks have worked, and, in addition to that, they’re finding the issues that they’re trying to counter Trump with — free college, free tuition, Medicare for all, it’s not working, and they’re tired of what the Democrats are doing! They’re tired of the daily chaos. They’re not energized by it.
Areas of the country are improving, things are doing well, but not because of what Washington is doing, which, by the way, the real key is things do get better when Washington isn’t involved. “In focus groups, most participants say they’re still impressed with Trump’s business background and tend to give him credit for the improving economy.” That shocks them. That shocks the Democrats. It shocks these pollsters.
Now, the poll says, “The window is closing,” but voters are still inclined to give Trump a chance to succeed. They don’t want him thrown out of office. They don’t want any of that. But they do believe that his business background is valuable and that the economic upturn is his credit. “More than that, no single Democratic attack on the president is sticking.” Not Russia, not collusion, not Trump enriching himself, none of it. None of these attacks, not one of them is sticking, meaning not one of them is doing any damage.
Okay, now, why have all of these attacks — and this is The Politico saying so; it isn’t me. And you’re free to disagree with The Politico. Some of you may disagree. “It is hurting Trump! It’s ticking me off! It makes me mad. It’s causing other people to hate Trump who otherwise wouldn’t.” I understand that. But it’s not showing up in the official polling data conducted by Trump’s enemies — and in this case, I don’t think they’re gonna lie to themselves. They want to know if their stuff’s working or not, and it isn’t. So why isn’t it?
There’s one thing Trump does that no other politician has ever done that serves the purpose of thwarting every day these allegations, accusations, these attempts to literally destroy Trump — and that it Twitter. As much as I shrink away from social media ’cause I think it’s a sewer, and I think it’s where human debris congregate, the fact of the matter is, it’s not all that.
Donald Trump has the ability every day — and uses it — to not only fight back and properly characterize the people attacking him. He also daily, multiple times a day, tweets what his agenda is and what he’s trying to do and what he has done. He is doing the job an otherwise responsible media would be doing. But they aren’t. He is recording his successes. He’s telling about the meetings he’s having and the people he’s talking to, the progress he’s making on things. He calls out the people that are standing in his way.
He explains why he’s not doing this or is doing that.
Why? Well, in Trump’s case, he has this connection, he has trust, he has believability. He has a bond with people that he built.
And if the media has nothing to do with building that connection, then the media can’t destroy it.
More From Rush Limbaugh: