Sunday’s Washington Post-ABC News poll did not contain a lot of surprises. President Trump remains historically unpopular, but the GOP almost universally supports him. Most voters still do not believe that Trump has the temperament to serve effectively as president. And like past presidents, respondents are split on whether Trump is keeping his promises. So far, so expected.
But one finding in Sunday’s poll is a departure from past polls: The vast majority of Americans now think the Democratic Party is not “in touch with the concerns of most people in the United States.” The current number — only 28 percent think the party is in touch — has been noted elsewhere, and that number is concerning enough on its own: It’s 10 percentage points less than the number of people who think Trump is in touch and 4 percent less than the number who think the GOP is. But what hasn’t been commented upon is even more worrying for Democrats: In 2014, 48 percent of voters felt the party was “in touch,” a 20-percentage-point collapse in just three years.
Yes, just three years ago the country was split down the middle about whether Democrats understood voters’ concerns, while only a quarter of voters thought the same about Republicans. Any reckoning of where the party goes from here has to account for this change in the public’s image of the blue party. Worse, it’s likely that the collapse has mostly come among independents and Democrats themselves — three quarters of independents and nearly half of Democrats think the party is out of touch, which can’t help turnout. Politics should not be about blindly following poll numbers, but when so many of your own supporters are rejecting the direction Democrats are moving, they may want to reconsider the course.
People understand that the Republicans are the problem right now. What they don't believe, and overwhelmingly so, is that the Democrats offer more than zero solutions. Right now more people believe Donald Trump, a possibly senile reality TV star who regularly lies whenever he can, is more in touch with America than the Democrats.
That's a problem.
That's not true, and not fair, but politics over the last 25 years hasn't exactly been fair, has it? Dems need to get it in gear, and being mired down in internecine fights between factions since July hasn't helped. It's time to get a unified message out there, and right now.
Luckily, I'm thinking that the Trump regime is the best ally for the Dems here, by constantly screwing up they'll start to become losers that nobody likes.
We'll see.
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