Pay no heed to the misleading Trump approval ratings

When it comes to Donald Trump and his achievements during his first 100 days, who are you going to believe, the New York Times or your lyin’ eyes? 

By “the New York Times,” incidentally, I do not mean just that one woke media outlet masquerading as a source of news. 

No, I take the Times as a metonym for the entire propaganda industrial complex, the giant dispenser of politically correct nostrums and seismically sensitive Keeper of the Narrative. 

Thus it is that the Times is a reliable dispenser not of that sort of information we denominate “news” – that is, what is actually happening and who is involved in making it happen.

On the contrary, the Times is primarily a source of emotional mirrors: grateful reflections that flatter and reinforce their readers’ prejudices, figures of self-esteem, moral cynosures.

So it is that on the run up to Trump’s 100th day in office (or, taking into account his first term, his 1,560th day), the Times was on the barricades shouting that Trump’s approval rating was in free fall, that his voters had “buyers’ remorse,” that it was only a matter of time before the old consensus of corruption was restored and the world was set right again: AOC, Stacey Abrams, Jamie Raskin and Chuck Schumer forever!

ABC: “Donald Trump has the lowest 100-day job approval rating of any president in the past 80 years, with public pushback on many of his policies and extensive economic discontent, according to a new ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll.”

New York Post: “President Trump battered by brutal polls that show his approval sinking – including one revealing the lowest ratings since World War Two.”

Et very much cetera. 

And what are we to make of these rituals of excoriation?  

Apart from their value as symptoms of psycho-pathology, not much. The whole campaign of delegitimization-by-poll-numbers is part of what a writer for Townhall called “another liberal media psyop.”

Polling themselves, they get the reassuring results they crave. What they miss is the reality of Trump’s extraordinary activity and multiple successes on the ground. 

This is something that the commentator Larry Kudlow articulated in a searing column about “fake polls.”

Why was Trump elected? To close the border. He has done that. The polls about that little accomplishment, which Joe Biden said was impossible, are off-the-charts positive.

Why was Trump elected? To purge the country of illegal immigrants. Unless you are a district court judge, you think Trump’s success on this score its terrific. Tom Homan is a new folk hero.

Why was Trump elected? To end the discriminatory insanity of DEI: a race- and sex-based two-tier system of anti-white, anti-male, anti-normal prejudice. Once again, in the space of just a few months, Trump has made gigantic strides. The people love it. 

Why was Trump elected? To end the forever wars and pursue a national-interest-based, peace-through-strength foreign policy. This, too, he is making a reality.

Why was Trump elected? To level the economic playing field internationally, to end the practice of other countries taking advantage of the United States and “ripping us off.” Everyone knows that this is exactly what Trump’s tariffs are designed to accomplish: to establish a practice of free trade that is also fair trade and that gives priority to American workers and American industry. It’s early days yet, but already you can see that it is working. 

Why was Trump elected? To put our fiscal house in order. To do something about the unsustainable $37-trillion federal debt and end the regime of self-dealing fraud and abuse that that become the chief export of the United States government. Accomplishing this will be a long, complicated task, but what splendid inroads Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has already made. Musk will be taking a back seat on DoGE soon, but the ball he got rolling will continue and will pick up speed and effectiveness.

Donald Trump signed his 140th executive order just a couple of days ago. He has instigated a far-reaching counter-revolution in the way government does – or, rather, has avoided doing – its business. The Times and other organs of the propaganda press squeal and stamp their little feet. District court judges try to stymie Trump’s counter-revolution. They might as well try to stop a locomotive with a twig. 

Donald Trump is busy making America great again. The whiners, hysterics and losers who can’t abide the tonic atmosphere of liberty are caterwauling in their misery. As Dante said in another context, non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda e passa: “Let us not pay them any attention, but look and pass on.”