Despite a coordinated, full-court savaging throughout the national media, President Trump is showing a counter-intuitive resilience among actual voters — you know, those people who live in the real world outside the cable news bubble. In both the Rasmussen poll of likely voters and the latest Politico poll of voters, Trump’s job approval rating has jumped to a healthy 45 percent.
When you look across the media landscape and their narrative, this seems impossible. According to our objective, unbiased, not-at-all left-wing media, Trump has bungled everything from providing hurricane relief to Puerto Rico to the NFL’s national anthem protests to a tax plan that will explode the deficit, decimate the poor, and provide a windfall for the rich.
Other polling might shed some light on the disparity between the media coverage and reality. To begin with, almost every poll on the NFL protests shows that majorities disapprove of millionaire crybabies disrespecting the flag. And in other news our media are not all that eager to share, a plurality of 48 percent of voters approve of Trump’s tax plan, with only 37 percent opposing:
For now, the partisan split favors the GOP. More than three-quarters of Republicans, 78 percent, approve of the tax plan, while a smaller share of Democratic voters, 65 percent, disapprove. Independent voters are split: 38 percent approve, and 38 percent disapprove.
But opponents of the plan are more enthusiastic: 26 percent strongly oppose it, compared with 20 percent who strongly approve of the proposal.
The most popular elements of the initial proposal are doubling the standing deduction from $12,000 to $24,000 (62 percent of voters say that should be in the eventual tax bill), reducing the maximum small-business tax rate from 39.6 percent to 25 percent (61 percent), creating a $500 tax credit for all dependents (61 percent) and increasing the child tax credit (60 percent).
Among the least popular elements of the proposal: reducing the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent (39 percent of voters say that should be in the bill) and no longer taxing overseas profits of U.S. companies.
Moreover, a plurality of 44 percent believe Trump’s tax plan will result in a positive impact on the U.S. economy, while only 24 percent believe it will have a negative impact. The rest see little to no impact.
One look at the media coverage surrounding Trump and this tax plan, though, would make one believe that both the man and his policy are toxic and hated. The polls, however, not only prove the opposite, but prove that the national media have almost no impact anymore on public opinion.
After decades of lies and scandals, after more than a year of a fake news spree against Trump, the media have lost almost all of their moral authority.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.