The tradition of taking stock of presidential accomplishments after the first 100 days of a new administration goes back to Franklin Roosevelt, who invited the assessment as part of his effort to combat what has become known as The Great Depression.

The flurry of legislation he pushed through Congress at something close to the speed of light obscures his promise to have sought what we might refer to now as dictatorial powers should his initial attempts to work with and through Congress fail.

He needn't have worried. The public demanded action and Roosevelt gave it to them, concerns about the constitutionality of his actions be damned. That was for later. His actions were as important symbolically as they were from the standpoint of policy. His predecessor, a multi-millionaire civil engineer who had never held elective office and had a reputation for being the world's great solver of even greater problems, was unable to do anything to stop the rising unemployment, closure of banks and growing panic commonly associated with the depression's early years. FDR took up the task vigorously – and the public believed he had matters well in hand despite – as economic reporter Amity Shales points out in her well-reviewed 2008 book "The Forgotten Man" – the massive government interventions in the economy that originated with him did little to actually reserve the collapse. It took America's entry in World War II to do that.

Nevertheless, the benchmark stuck. Every president since has seen his first 100 days in office scrutinized with an intensity and efficiency usually not seen in the American media. It gives the cheerleaders a chance to trumpet the successes while the detractors use it as an opportunity to pronounce the new chief executive a failure.

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With that in mind, some senior White House officials and administration surrogates are suggesting it would be unfair to hold Trump to the same 100 day standard as his predecessors. There's some validity in this, as almost everyone expected to be evaluating the performance of a certain other person right now, so everyone on the left and on the right and in the media has been scrambling to put things in perspective and explain why the wrong person won.

Look back to 2008. Rush Limbaugh took a lot of heat from the progressive establishment – which includes just about all the major newspapers, many elected officials, a bunch of television talking heads and most of the television news networks – because he said he wanted Barack Obama "to fail." As anyone who bothered to listen would have heard the nation's most influential radio commentator say the feeling had nothing to do with Obama personally. It was just as a conservative he could not stand by and cheer while the new president tried to implement a radically progressive agenda that was wrong for America.

After 2016 the same people who rode to Obama's defense eight years previously are now cheering for Trump to fail because they don't like him. It's not a question of policy; whether they will admit it or not, it is intensely personal.

The dislike of the new president and distrust of his staunchest supporters – about whom much has been written, little of it fawning or flattering – is probably best described as a struggle between the classes or, as a long ago movie suggested, "It's the snobs versus the slobs." Trump's first 100 days reviews were largely sketched out on day one of his presidency with only the details to be filled in later. The Kennedy-Clinton-Obama liberal clique that populates so much of the influencing class is determined to drive Trump down into an oblivion they believe he richly deserves no matter what it does to the country.

Speaking of the country, however, they appear to be with the new president – and in ways one might not expect given the almost universally negative coverage he has received since coming into office. As my estimable colleague Kenneth Walsh wrote elsewhere here this week, "The latest poll conducted by ABC News and The Washington Post finds that, as he approaches his 100th day in office Saturday – a traditional milestone for assessing new presidents – 96 percent of those who supported him in last November's election say they would do it again today. His approval rating among those who voted for him is 94 percent. This is a positive development for Trump just when he needs it most."

So we know, going into day 100, Trump's base is holding. This is enormously important as the outside groups working to build grassroots support for his initiatives such as the one now led by former deputy White House Chief of Staff Katie Walsh begin to get up a head of steam. Their ads and call to action to move Congress will, one can safely predict, produce some movement in favor of what Trump wants to do on health care, taxes, trade, jobs and the wall once they get started, especially in the Senate where nearly a dozen of the Democrats up for re-election in 2018 come from states Trump carried for president.

There are a couple of other nuggets in the ABC News/Washington Post poll that should shape the reporting of Trump's performance thus far and the general state of affairs in Washington. D.C. If the public is frustrated it may just be because so many problems have not yet been solved – and Trump, just like the fellow who preceded FDR in the White House, is supposed to be able to fix things. But how much of that is the president's fault?

The Post's analysis of its own poll says quite clearly the Democrats are almost as out of touch with American people as they believe Trump may be. "The 28 percent who say the party is in touch with concerns of most Americans is down from 48 percent in 2014 and the biggest drop is among self-identified Democrats, from 83 percent saying they are in touch to just 52 percent today."

The other key point, which the Post buries at the end of its own story, is its own numbers show the surprise outcome from November 2016 would likely be repeated today. "The survey finds little evidence voters would render a different verdict from last November, when Trump won key states needed to secure victory in the Electoral College despite Clinton winning more votes nationwide."

To put some data behind it, 46 percent of the just over 1,000 random U.S. adults participating in the survey said they voted for Clinton, while 43 percent voted for Trump. "Asked how they would vote if the election were held today, 43 say they would support Trump and 40 percent say Clinton."