Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich explained Monday in an op-ed on Fox News what the media is failing to inform the public regarding President Trump and his approval ratings.
First, he said, the media has not put Trump’s low polling numbers in historical context.
Trump’s current approval rating according to a recent average of polls is 39 percent, but President Reagan actually had similar numbers at one point during his presidency.
First, President Reagan had a similar period during his first term when his approval rating fell to 35 percent -- even lower than President Trump’s. Reagan bounced back, carried 49 states in a landslide reelection, and went on to oversee an economic boom and change world history by pushing the Soviet Union into collapse.
So, history tells us that presidential approval ratings at this point in time are not indicative of a president’s future success. (Fox News)
The second point Gingrich brings up is that the media has failed to even compare the president’s numbers to how some of his contemporary foreign counterparts are polling.
French President Emmanuel Macron is who came to Gingrich’s mind as somehow who the media and elite fawned over and was widely popular upon election but then voters changed their minds drastically.
The news media loved him. They lionized him because he was seen as the anti-Trump. Macron was smooth where Trump was rough. Macron was sophisticated and international where Trump was an American populist (oh how it pains the elite media to have a crude populist as their president when they could have someone elegant who understands fine wine and cheese).
Unfortunately for the elite media, the Macron myth has not aged well. As voters came to know him, they were put off by his icy, imperialist aloofness. As they came to understand his proposed reforms, they decided they opposed them.
Macron was at 64 percent approval in June. Now, less than two months later, he has fallen to 36 percent....BELOW TRUMP.
Instead of reporting this, however, the media has ignored it.
But Macron isn’t the only world leader to poll low.
For example, British Prime Minister Theresa May earned a 34 percent satisfaction rate, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had a July approval rating of 34.2 percent, and the Democratic Party in the United States received 38 percent approval in June.
All of these approval ratings are lower than President Trump’s - but you don’t see the elite media fighting to break that news story.
Gingrich reminds readers to remember these two points the next time they hear pundits talk about the president’s approval numbers.
“Then relax and enjoy the nonsense knowing it is just that: nonsense,” he concluded.