Trump is just as popular today as he was on Election Day
Watching CNN over the weekend led me to believe that Trump is a Nazi and is about to be overthrown. Then why on earth does polling in the US show he is just as popular as he was the day he was elected? What is going on?
Respected research organisation, National Journal, has released data that show the media's coverage of the Charlottsville white supremacist march as being insane at best, nefarious at worst.
First of all, a sizable majority of Americans want old Civil War statues to be maintained - including 44 per cent of black Americans. And 43 per cent of Americans agree that Trump was right to point out that the so-called 'antifa' or 'alt-left' movement, which counter-protested the white supremacist, also contributed to violence. (It must be remembered that the 'antifa' have not killed anybody...)
Most tellingly, Trump is still viewed favourably by almost 40 per cent of America, which is the same number as just before the election. (It seems polling companies don't have the phone numbers of people who vote Trump, Brexit etc.) In fact, as terrorists continue to create distrust and fear in public places in Europe, it is likely that Trump's 'America First' rhetoric will probably become more popular.
The point is that most people literally do not care about statues. In such a climate, people find the desire to tear down statues as strange and unnecessary.
I recently pointed out that in SA we started off calling for statues of Rhodes to fall - and have ended with left-wing activists placing rats at the Mandela statue in Sandton. The same pattern is being followed in the US - if you apply moral purity tests to all statues, heroes like Washington, Lincoln, and even Martin Luther King Jnr will also eventually fall (and there is evidence there are movements looking to cause these very results). Hell, even Obama will fall soon - as he opposed gay marriage for the vast majority of his political career, a position now defined as 'fascist' by various Trump resistance movements.
As for Trump's supposed Nazi sympathies, I have searched his public comments and I literally have no idea what the media is talking about. The only things he has ever said about white nationalists are all overwhelmingly negative. All he has done is criticised the counter-protesters too - who also became violent in Virginia. Maybe I've missed something? So what gives?
I think the real news story this past week has nothing to do with Trump. Rather, what we are seeing is a growing fracture between the media and people who have not bought into the globalised world, in terms of left-wing values, free trade, and open borders.
And if a large minority continuously is ignored and ridiculed, there may come a time when countries like the US long for a moderate leader like Trump, who is a buffoon, yes, but certainly not a fascist.