Donald Trump just got some terrible news
Aside from the usual calls of “Presidential Harassment!” and insisting that he’s innocent and somehow the target of a vast conspiracy he learned about from watching Fox News, Donald Trump’s other favorite defense mechanism is to warn about the consequences of his impeachment. Sometimes he’ll take on the role of an autocrat and warn of rioting and violence from his most ardent supporters, if he finds himself impeached. Other times, he’ll warn of the stock market crashing as a direct result of his impeachment, or that the media will suffer directly due to poor ratings, since they can no longer rely on his insane speeches or rallies to make the news. He’s made similar threats about losing re-election.
Like many of his predictions, things have not quite materialized as he imagined. The stock market hasn’t crashed yet, but the manufacturing sector is currently in a recession and growth has slowed significantly – both direct results of his own trade policies, and well before the impeachment inquiry was opened.
As for the media suffering, the major news networks have been giving his rallies and speeches less attention lately, tired of reporting on the same song and dance that lost the novelty it had back in 2016. As for the adoring fans who would be opposed to his impeachment, it’s still early on in the inquiry, but a new poll by Morning Consult and Politico uncovered an interesting trend.
The new poll, taken just over the past three days, showed that 43% of Americans supported opening impeachment proceedings against Trump and 43% opposed. An earlier survey taken between September 20-22 found only 36% favoring impeachment and 49% against. Aside from the dramatic increase in support, a small number of Republicans appeared to have changed their mind on the issue of impeachment – with 10% favoring impeachment, twice the number from just a few days ago. We’ll see if the number stays steady or if it continues to increase – but the narrative is not likely to get much more flattering for Donald Trump, and all his excuses for saving himself ring hollow.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making