The Washington Post released a poll the other day with an unsurprising headline: Poll: Trump’s performance lags behind even tepid public expectations



Approaching the first anniversary of his victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, Trump has an approval rating demonstrably lower than any previous chief executive at this point in his presidency over seven decades of polling. Fewer than 4 in 10 Americans — 37 percent — say they approve of the way he is handling his job.

So Trump is notable for his unpopularity. That's not a show-stopped by any means.

What actually IS new and interesting is buried nearly at the very bottom of the article.



Of those Americans who say they voted in 2016, 46 percent say they supported Clinton, and 43 percent say they backed Trump. If an election were held today, with the same candidates, 40 percent of those 2016 voters say they would back Trump, and 40 percent say they would support Clinton.

Holy Sh*t!

If the election were held again today, Hillary would actually do worse against the most unpopular president in modern American history.

I don't know how she could get more unpopular, without eating a baby on live TV.

Also buried in the poll is the source of the Democrats problems.



Asked whether the Democratic Party is presenting alternatives to Trump’s proposals or mainly criticizing the president, 61 percent said mainly criticizing, identical to the percentage who said this of Republican Party leaders one year after Obama’s election. Only a plurality of Democrats (47 percent) say their leaders are offering alternatives to Trump’s ideas.

And it gets worse. Look at today's poll.



Favorable views of the Democratic Party have dropped to their lowest mark in more than a quarter century of polling, according to new numbers from a CNN poll conducted by SSRS.

Only 37% of Americans have a favorable opinion of Democrats, down from 44% in March of this year. A majority, 54%, have an unfavorable view, matching their highest mark in polls from CNN and SSRS, CNN/ORC and CNN/USA Today/Gallup stretching back to 1992.

The rating includes low favorable ratings from some core Democratic groups, including nonwhites (48%) and people under 35 years old (33%).

These are terrible numbers for any normal political party.

But for a party that has been wiped out at every level of government they are catastrophic.

It begs comparisons to the Whigs.



For nearly a quarter of a century, Democrats have taken electoral drubbing after electoral drubbing despite the fact that the Republican Party is less favorably viewed than the Democrats on almost every imaginable issue. Democrats currently control only 15 out of 50 governorships, 31 out of 99 state legislative chambers, and none of the levers of power in Washington, D.C. When the public prefers your party on almost every issue but you’re still getting crushed across the country, it speaks volumes about the party’s health and vitality. How can such an inept organization survive?

...Democrats’ seed corn is wasting away in the root cellar while the party’s tired, washed-up leaders hang on to power like Politburo potentates.

With full control of only six out of 50 state governments, the party is arguably in as dire of a condition as the Whigs were when they went out of business in the 1850s. The Whigs held nine of 30 governorships four years before they collapsed, which at 30 percent of the total was exactly on par with the Democrats’ 30 percent share of governorships today.

It's quite possible that the Democrats will go from Permanent Democratic Majority: New Study Says Yes to oblivion in just over a decade.

This doesn't happen without a fundamental misunderstanding of the political situation.

What could be that fundamental mistake? Well, the fact that reaching out to the struggling white working class, the largest voting demographic in the country, is even considered a "controversial strategy" is a BIG clue as to what has gone wrong with the Democrats.