ARE TRUMP'S POLL NUMBERS BASED ENTIRELY ON VIBES?

On Thursday evening, shortly after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. defended his vaccine crackpottery before a Senate committee, NBC News reported that the public doesn't agree with Kennedy on vaccination:

Polling showing that a majority of President Donald Trump’s voters support vaccines was shared with several Republicans lawmakers’ staffers in a closed-door meeting Wednesday, according to two people familiar with the meeting.

NBC News obtained a copy of a memo, dated Aug. 26, summarizing the poll results. It was conducted by veteran Republican pollsters Tony Fabrizio and Bob Ward and concluded “that there is broad unity across party lines supporting vaccines such as measles (MMR), shingles, tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis (TDAP), and Hepatitis B.”

... The poll found that there was broad agreement that vaccines should continue to be made available at no cost, including two-thirds of Trump voters and more than 8 out of 10 swing voters.

... About 73% of Trump voters and 83% of swing voters agreed that vaccines save lives.

Republican voters are skeptical about COVID shots, but approve of other vaccines. And yet there's no evidence that the public is overwhelmingly angry at the Trump administration for its efforts to make vaccines harder to obtain.

To be fair, the public really hasn't felt the full impact of Kennedy's anti-vaccine fatwa. But on other issues, Trump doesn't seem to be suffering at the polls even though the public disapproves of what he's doing.

A UMass Amherst national poll released in early August noted that the public strongly disapproved of the way Trump has handled the Jeffrey Epstein case:

Seven in 10 Americans believe that Trump is handling the matter “not well.” This includes pluralities of Trump’s most loyal supporters, 43% of Republicans, 43% of conservatives, and 47% of those who voted for him in 2024.

And yet Trump's overall approval rating has remained flat in the two months since the Epstein story returned to the headlines, after Attorney General Pam Bondi declared that here office wouldn't release additional Epstein files. Here's a graph from Nate Silver:

Trump's approval on the day of that Bondi announcement was 44.9%. Now it's 44.3%. Trump's disapproval was 51.5%. Now it's 51.3%.

That time period also includes Trump's militarization of Washington, D.C., which is unpopular according to most pollsters.

[An] AP-NORC poll found 55% say it’s “completely” or “somewhat” unacceptable for the federal government to take control of local police as Trump has done in Washington, D.C., and threatened to do in other major cities.

... a Reuters/Ipsos poll ... found just 38% support troops patrolling Washington, and a Quinnipiac poll shows 56% disapprove of the National Guard’s presence on Washington streets.

(There's a Harvard/CAPS Harris poll showing majority support for the military occupation, but the poll is from the loathsome, biased liberal-basher Mark Penn, so I discount it.)

The D.C. occupation is unpopular, but it's had no impact on Trump's overall poll numbers.

I guess this isn't surprising, because we know that issues don't seem to matter when Americans are assessing Trump. It's widely believed that the most important issue to Americans by far is the economy. Washington Democrats, in particular, believe that it's the only issue worth talking about, and that all conversations should pivot to the economy.

So if the economy is what's on Americans' minds above all else, you'd assume that Trump's overall approval rating would track closely with his approval rating on the economy. But you'd be wrong. According to Nate Silver's polling average, Trump is at -7% overall (44.3% approval, 51.3% disapproval). But his disapproval on the ecomoy is nearly twice that: -13.6% (40.7% approval, 54.3% disapproval). On trade, his numbers are even worse: -16.1% (38.9% approval, 55% disapproval). And on inflation, Trump's numbers are horrific: -26.7% (34.3% approval, 60% disapproval).

Trump's numbers on immigration numbers are better, but they're still underwater, according to Silver: -3% (46.5% approval, 49.5% disapproval). That doesn't seem like enough to make up for bad numbers on the economy, or Epstein, or foreign policy (-9.3% according to the Real Clear Polling average, with a -15.4% rating on Russia/Ukraine and a 13.4% rating on Israel/Palestine).

I'm beginning to suspect that Trump's numbers are purely vibes-based. If you like his swaggering-blowhard act, you approve of him and probably always will, no matter what happens to the country. You might even continue to approve of him if ICE deports your spouse or tariffs threaten your farm. So maybe we can't persuade you with the facts. You don't care about facts. You care about how Trump makes you feel.

I hope I'm wrong about this. We need to make Trump massively unpopular. But it's not easy if at least 40% olf the country likes his style.