cmsellers wrote:Doods, what Kate said was that she expected people to blame whichever side they didn't vote for. The numbers are me and they're rather rough. Trump's disapproval ratings have never fallen below forty, while his approval ratings haven't been above it for a year. However since the polls include non-voters, who disproportionately don't like Trump, and they don't actually matter (if you want your opinion to matter, fucking vote), I'm rounding things in his favor.
The main point I was trying to make is that if Kate is right and people split blame based on who they voted for, that would actually help Trump's numbers. That would be consistent with previous government shutdowns, but since those shutdowns happened under divided governments it would also be irrational behavior. And while people are often irrational it wouldn't surprise me, but I wouldn't bank on it.
One think I implied but didn't say: this seems to be a risky move for the Democrats. I'm incredibly skeptical that this shutdown will cut into his floor, which seems to be about three points below where he's polling now (he seems to have gotten a very slight boost from the tax bill). So best-case scenario is Trump loses three points. But it's entirely possible that people will blame both parties equally, and if that happens the relative favorability of the GOP to the Dems could climb, which is very bad for their odds of taking either house of Congress.
First, his approval did actually briefly rise above forty recently, then dipped back down. Second, well, I have my thoughts on likely voters v. not likely voters (if all those likely voters were voting, I don't think Democrats would have won all that they have since 2017), but we'll see how that goes in the midterms and 2020. I don't think it'll help Trump's numbers, I'm just going to hit that one up point blank. If it held true that dysfunction should help him revert to forty, then he should've been at forty the last year. I was under the impression that both Obama and Clinton actually suffered in approval because of the shutdowns, so I have a hard time believing Trump will be the exception when his party controls both houses.
I also don't think his floor is that unshakably high. I think the only reason it is right now is because the economy is solid (sorta, I've shared my thoughts on that too), and he's very unpopular considering the health of the economy. If that goes, and there's a decent chance we see some kind of slump in the next three years given how long we've been going up, I'd expect that number to sit more around 30-33.
I actually think this is a risky move for exactly no one, except maybe Trump (more on that in a second). For the GOP and the Democrats, this is too far away from the midterms for it to particularly matter. Any disapproval will likely revert back to the mean before long. This could have more long-lasting damage to the GOP, in that they're already seen as a party that isn't serious about governance, but where the midterms are concerned, I think nobody suffers.
As for Trump, I think this could nullify any goodwill gained by the passage of that tax bill, and any future infrastructure bill is probably off the table for the year. This will likely continue to reinforce the narrative that he doesn't know what the fuck he's doing, that he's racist (that a popular DREAM act was the sticking point in all this, combined with the 'shithole' comments and the Charlottesville thing, etc), and he's frankly more an impediment to deal-making than conducive to it. Remember, he was the one who decided to get rid of the DREAM EO, and then when everyone had reached consensus on something he said he wanted to get done, he blew that consensus up again.
So yeah, I don't think either of the parties will be harmed, but Trump could be and the GOP might see more people hardened against them in the long run, but I don't think this changes much about the midterms. Most of my last post was simply my thoughts on who's likely to be blamed on this (even though the answer is: everybody, in unequal amounts).