The following article by Kenneth T. Walsh was posted on the U.S. News website July 21, 2017:
President Donald Trump didn’t create the bitter atmosphere in Washington, but he’s making it worse.
America’s polarization and political dysfunction have become structural, built into the system as never before. President Donald Trump didn’t create the situation in which the country finds itself, increasingly divided into irreconcilable camps, but Trump is intensifying the hard feelings all around. And things are getting worse.
The collapse of the Senate Republican health care bill this week is a case in point. Trump and GOP leaders were unable to muster the necessary 50 votes to advance the measure, which would have overhauled the health-care law passed under Democratic President Barack Obama. Even though the Republicans have been campaigning against Obamacare since it was enacted seven years ago, they couldn’t agree on how to do it. And neither major party was willing to compromise with the other side. The result: an embarrassing failure. And since the GOP controls the House, the Senate and the White House, Republicans bear most of the burden for the setback.
Trump acknowledged that the GOP now has a massive credibility problem. “For seven years, I’ve been hearing ‘repeal and replace’ from Congress, and I’ve been hearing it loud and strong,” Trump told reporters at the White House, referring to Obamacare. “And then when we finally get a chance to repeal and replace, they don’t take advantage of it. So, that’s disappointing.” Notice that he didn’t take personal responsibility for what happened. Instead, he blamed Congress.
But Trump has suffered a huge blow to his reputation as a deal-maker.
The billionaire real-estate developer pledged during the campaign to use his deal-making skills to outsmart and overpower the power structure in Washington and force the elites bend to his will. It isn’t happening. And he has little of consequence to show legislatively for his first six months in office, aside from winning Senate confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. That was an important victory but a far cry from the era of presidential dominance that Trump imagined during the campaign.
Taking stock of Trump’s presidency after six months, it’s clear that he has managed to keep his core Republican supporters and many anti-establishment voters firmly in his corner. Millions of Americans remain loyal to him because, pollsters of both major parties say, they admire the way he has disrupted the norms of Washington and confronted the elites, including congressional leaders and the news media.
But his job-approval rating is abysmal among Democrats and many independents. About 86 percent of his fellow Republicans approve of the job that Trump is doing, according to the Gallup poll, but only 9 percent of Democrats and 36 percent of independents feel this way.
One of Trump’s problems is that he can’t keep from tripping over himself. When things seem to be going his way, he unleashes angry and off-message comments on Twitter, and he appears to be a bully, an undisciplined braggart and a nasty politician who strikes many as unlikable. Washington insiders generally say he would be better off staying on message – talking about his steps to improve the economy, cut regulations, stimulate the business sector, reduce the size and cost of government, and attack the status quo in Washington.
But Trump, ever Mr. Bluster, does things the way he wants, and this means behaving erratically and with a big dose of narcissism. He continues to use Twitter as a vehicle for attacks. This alienates many people and groups, and It doesn’t strengthen his hand. Trump recently tweeted defiantly, “My use of social media is not Presidential – it’s MODERN DAY PRESIDENTIAL. Make America Great Again!”
He is off base. The latest Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that 68 percent of Americans say Trump’s tweets are “inappropriate;” 65 percent say they are “insulting,” and 52 percent say they are “dangerous.”
The survey also finds that seven of ten people say Trump’s “behavior as president” is “unpresidential” (including 38 percent of Republicans) and only 24 percent say it’s “fitting and proper.”
A new wave of polling this week showed how deeply divided the United States has become, with Democrats and Republicans living in separate universes and showing little willingness to bring the country together. Americans are separated by ideology, lifestyle and values. And Democrats and Republicans have huge differences over many basic issues, including health care, whether religious organizations exert a positive influence, the value of the news media and even on whether higher education has a positive impact on society. Large numbers of Republicans say it doesn’t while Democrats have a more upbeat assessment. We don’t have as many unifying principles as we did a generation ago, and fewer Americans seem interested in building bridges to each other. Trump is a big part of the problem.
View the post here.