Disapproval of Trump on Race Has Ebbed a Bit Since Charlottesville

Eugene Scott reports that most of America disapproves of the way Donald Trump is handling race relations:

Nearly 60 percent of Americans disapprove of the way Trump is handling race relations, according to the most recent Quinnipiac University poll. The only group that gives him high marks are Republicans, with 76 percent. White men are the next highest, with half approving of Trump’s handling of race relations.

Unfortunately, this implicit suggestion that the public is getting ever more tired of Trump’s racial attacks is not the real story. Here’s the real story:

Scott alludes to this in the sixth paragraph in the most ambiguous possible way, but the plain story here is that disapproval of Trump on race has abated over the past year. This makes it awfully hard to suggest that these poll results “could be because of how the president handled race during the midterms.”

At least, I sure hope so. As Scott points out, Trump’s attitude toward race was pretty revolting during the midterms, and if this helped lead to a lower disapproval level then we’re in even worse shape than we thought.

As it happens, my guess is that this mild downward trend doesn’t mean much: it was probably just a combination of polling artifacts and the natural consequence of Charlottesville fading into the past. Most likely, Trump’s handling of race had no noticeable impact at all on how people graded his performace. Isn’t that bad enough?

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate