It would be an understatement to say that, six months into Donald Trump’s presidency, Margaret Ernstrom doesn’t like what she’s seeing.
“He behaves like a teenager who needs to have his phone taken away,” she says. “He acts like a kid who has a temper tantrum every time things don’t go his way and thinks that he’s still on a reality TV show. … He doesn’t give respect to the office he holds and he has no idea what the definition of diplomacy is.”
After months of weathering turmoil and turnover, enduring the Russia scandal and Senate setbacks, and firing off impulsive Tweets and firing a dogged FBI director, you might think that faith in the president might be shaken.
You’d be wrong. The recent poll by The Salt Lake Tribune and Hinckley Institute of Politics shows thatmore Utahns still approve of the job he’s doing than disapprove.
It’s just about the same as when he took office and, in fact, the 47 percent approval rating that Trump still garners in Utah is still roughly 10 points higher than the best approval rating President Barack Obama ever received in the Beehive State.
How is that happening? Are people just not paying attention?
It seems like there are a few things at play.
One explanation is that people are paying attention and they like what they see. Take Jeramey McElhaney of Moab, who is thrilled with the way the economy has been going over the last six months.
“It seems to be roaring like it hasn’t since about 2006. [It] has taken off at light speed,” he said. “We’re setting records. It’s crazy.”
That’s true and it’s not. The Dow eclipsed 22,000 for the first time last week and with the new jobs report Friday, the unemployment rate fell to 4.3 percent and Trump can boast 1 million new jobs during his administration (he already boasted about it in June, even though he was wrong then).
But to put it into context, more jobs were created in the last six months of the Obama administration than the first six of Trump’s, and quarterly economic growth was regularly more robust under Obama than it has been under Trump.
Which leads to another explanation: Trump backers don’t believe the hype. They doubt the months-long investigation into the campaign’s ties to Russia — “probably more smoke than fire,” McElhaney told me — and they don’t think the news media is giving the president a fair shake.
Tammi Gilson of Castle Dale is more direct.
“The Russia connection is a bunch of crap and all they do is try to keep things going in the media, so really the things that are getting done [news outlets] aren’t putting them out, so we have to find ways to find out what’s really going on,” she said.
Gilson blames Arizona Sen. John McCain and the Republicans in the Senate for failing to repeal Obamacare and thinks if more people in Congress got behind Trump, we would start seeing results on the issues important to people like her.
“The military, the Second Amendment, this baloney about trying to make all these acres monuments — another bunch of crap. I have kids that live down there and it’s ridiculous what they’re trying to lock up” in Obama’s Bears Ears National Monument, she said. “Let’s not forget climate change. That’s a bunch of crap, too.”
Mitch Blake, a Republican and Trump supporter from Highland, isn’t worried about the Russian ties either. He acknowledges there has been some drama in the White House, but chalks it up to Trump shaking up the old paradigm.
“This is a very different president in terms of him bringing a lot of business skills and acumen and practices into a political office,” Blake said. “I think that’s what we see in the hiring and firing and what has gone on, trying to meld those two disciplines together.”
Democrats I talked to were predictably critical of the president.
Gordon Whiting of Provo said Trump is “an inveterate liar. He doesn’t know what the truth is.” He says the president is egotistical, immature, a narcissist who is only concerned about himself and his businesses and, he fears, will start a war with North Korea.
Tara Hall of Vineyard said she tried to be optimistic when Trump was elected, but was frustrated to see him try to topple Obamacare without proposing anything in its place to help people.
“I think this is a big joke to him and it’s about power and perception and his ego,” she said.
The polarization is stark and borne out by the data from the recent Tribune poll.
Eighty-two percent of those who identify themselves as “very conservative” and 60 percent of those who are “somewhat conservative” support Trump; more than 90 percent of self-described liberals disapprove.
This president appears to be a partisan wedge that has divided Utah into two tribes — those who see him as an erratic egomaniac and those who think he’ll “Make America Great Again,” dismissing negative news as media bias.
After six turbulent months, Trump’s approval in Utah is right where it was when he took office and, as long as the partisan divides persist, the Teflon Don will maintain his popularity with the state’s dominant Republican majority.
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