{"id":2676,"date":"2026-07-03T08:08:01","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T08:08:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=2676"},"modified":"2026-07-03T08:08:01","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T08:08:01","slug":"cantankerous-trump-is-souring-his-own-celebration-with-bitterness-pollster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=2676","title":{"rendered":"Cantankerous Trump is souring his own celebration with bitterness: pollster"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

President Donald Trump has struggled to get decent turnout at his celebration of America\u2019s 250th birthday, which has focused on promoting Trump himself rather than American history. Between that and his increasingly desperate efforts to stop Democrats from voting in the upcoming midterm elections, many political experts believe Trump and the Republican Party could be headed toward a political wipeout.<\/p>\n

Read more \u2018Not what I voted for\u2019: Three-time Trump voter tears president apart<\/a><\/p>\n

According to one of the most respected political analysts in America, Trump could actually help himself politically through the United States\u2019 semiquincentennial \u2014 but he is squandering that opportunity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was perhaps a world in which President Trump might have used the looming semiquincentennial to bolster his, and his party\u2019s, fortunes for the fall,\u201d wrote Kyle Kondik, the managing editor of the University of Virginia Center for Politics\u2019 nonpartisan polling and elections newsletter Sabato\u2019s Crystal Ball, in an in-depth analysis on Thursday. \u201cOr at least tried to, perhaps by presenting himself as something other than a hard partisan figure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kondik contrasted Trump with another Republican politician, President Gerald Ford, who served in office during America\u2019s bicentennial celebration in 1976. Unlike Trump\u2019s polarizing approach, which emphasized promoting himself and bashing Democrats, Ford focused on a nonpartisan approach that was proactively positive about American history and the nation\u2019s future. This was \u201cexemplified by a campaign song, \u2018I\u2019m Feeling Good About America.\u2019 (That\u2019s also the name of our Center for Politics documentary about the 1976 campaign, free to watch on YouTube). Ford still lost [to Democratic nominee Jimmy Carter], but it ended up being a very close election,\u201d much closer than experts had predicted during the bicentennial celebrations that summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt may be that Republicans find a way to dig out of their current political hole, but a sunny, optimistic president rallying the country over the course of a happy, celebratory summer doesn\u2019t seem to be in the cards,\u201d Kondik explained. \u201cThis president cannot even countenance helping his party achieve an easy win, as he has both denigrated and thus far declined to sign a bipartisan housing bill, a matter of national concern in an election whose major theme is \u2018affordability.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that \u201cevents marking the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence have turned into yet another partisan event, with the president apparently planning to hold what amounts to a campaign rally on the Fourth itself. The World Cup, hosted partially by the United States, has excited international visitors and provided that rarest of all things on social media: organically heartwarming content. But that\u2019s not really a story that involves the president.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kondik clarified that, while Trump has not helped himself politically, it does not seem that he has hurt himself either. Yet with an approval rating stubbornly stuck in the 30s, \u201cif Democrats actually win the Senate this year\u2014they\u2019re still underdogs to do so\u2014Trump\u2019s numbers being worse than they were in 2018 [during his last midterm elections] would likely be a big explanation why.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because polls sample different groups of voters, Kondik predicted that Trump\u2019s numbers may fluctuate a little between now and Election Day, but that the safest bet is that they will remain where they are unless he makes drastic changes in his behavior.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs is often the case with modern presidential approval ratings, expecting little-to-no change is a better bet than expecting big change,\u201d Kondik wrote. \u201cParticularly as the president doesn\u2019t change much himself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking exclusively to AlterNet about his article, Kondik elaborated on the differences between Ford and Trump in terms of celebrating a big American birthday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is to some degree an apples to oranges comparison, because Ford was on the ballot and Trump is not, and the country was also a lot different,\u201d Kondik told AlterNet. \u201cBut I do think in the midst of a trying decade, Ford’s positive messaging helped cut through the negativity and capitalized on good feelings about the bicentennial. But there were many other reasons Ford came back, including uncertainty about whether Carter was up to the task of being president.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Most Gen Z can\u2019t answer basic questions on U.S. history at 250th<\/a><\/p>\n

When asked if Trump\u2019s explicitly partisan approach to celebrating America\u2019s 250th birthday will be remembered as a missed political opportunity for him, Kondik said that \u201cif Trump is as weak as he is now or weaker at the time of the election, and Republicans have a poor showing (losing the House and losing the Senate or at least losing one or more races in red states), it’ll be easy to point to Trump’s standing as a driving force in those results.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cIf that does happen, there will have been many missed opportunities for Trump, and perhaps how he handled the Fourth would be one of those (although in all likelihood other things would have been more important, like the decision to attack Iran and the subsequent impact on gas prices along with a general inability to address the big \u2018affordability\u2019 questions driving the election).\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet that does not mean Kondik is counting Trump out politically; when asked if there are realistic scenarios in which he politically recovers, Kondik told AlterNet that \u201chis approval has bounced back many times over the years, so maybe that still happens for reasons that aren’t immediately obvious.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking with this journalist for Salon in 2021, conservative author and scholar Gleaves Whitney \u2014 the executive director of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation since September 2020 \u2014 confirmed that Ford led an America with much more confidence in its institutions than Trump. At the time, he was comparing the America which Ford inherited in 1974 \u2014 a nation struggling with its identity after his predecessor, President Richard Nixon, resigned in disgrace because of the Watergate scandal \u2014 with the one Trump left behind him at the end of his first term.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are some similarities but many differences,\u201d Whitney told Salon at the time. \u201cDespite the turmoil of the Sixties, the social foundation of the U.S. was more intact in 1974 than it is today. There was more unum<\/em> and less pluribus<\/em> then. More Americans shared common beliefs and values when it came to religion, economics, politics, and society than they do today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile historian V. Scott Kaufman, who wrote a biography of Ford in 2017, observed that Ford would have been horrified by Trump\u2019s incitement of a riot on Jan. 6th in his coup effort after losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter Jimmy Carter\u2019s inauguration, President Ford departed the White House via helicopter,\u201d Kaufman wrote to Salon. \u201cAs he flew over the Capitol building, he said, with tears in his eyes, \u2018That\u2019s my real home.\u2019 For a person who had served in Congress for a quarter century, Ford knew that that \u2018home\u2019 was where the representatives of the people conducted business for American people. It is a hallowed place, a symbol of democracy. Had he been alive today and witnessed a group of thugs break into the Capitol, ransack it, and desecrate his statue by putting a Trump flag in his hand and a MAGA hat on his head, he would have been irate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also speaking to this journalist for Salon, but in 2018, the man who defeated Ford actively argued that Trump had eroded faith in America\u2019s most important institutions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe still have the same crises of that time,\u201d Carter told this journalist at the time. \u201cPlus a serious loss of faith in democracy, the truth, treating all people as equals, each generation believing life would be better, America has a good system of justice, etc.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Trump given \u2018keys to the kingdom\u2019 warns conservative political scientist<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump has struggled to get decent turnout at his celebration of America\u2019s 250th birthday, which has focused on promoting Trump himself rather than American history. 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