This week, you may have seen two stories floating around that don’t appear to be connected, but actually are: that UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is resigning because his poll numbers suck, and that U.S. “President” Trumpolini is staying right where he is despite his poll numbers sucking almost equally. You would think Trump’s poll numbers cratering would make me happy, and it’s true that it is certainly better than if they somehow stayed high, thus fully proving a majority of Americans have been lobotomized.
However, it also makes me mad for two reasons…
1. Yes, his poll numbers have predictably slid, but it feels like the only time he was “popular” were the months around November 2024. They were terrible when he left office in 2021. Then they miraculously got better just long enough for him to be re-elected but he wasn’t doing a thing differently than 2020/21. And now they (predictably) suck again because he (predictably) is doing a lousy job.
WHY did people not know this would be the outcome? He was popular just long enough to be reelected to a four year job he de facto can’t lose, and then people went back to remembering how much he sucks? That’s maddening.
2. Trumpolini’s approval ratings are about the same as Keir Starmer’s because Starmer has committed the high crime of being boring and looking scared every time he’s on camera. Meanwhile, Trump has been massively corrupt, unhinged, terrifyingly vindictive, desperate to gut funds people rely on, actively making America worse, and fascist-aspiring. Let’s be honest and admit that if Joe Biden had done 1/10th of what Trump has over the past year, he’d be out on his ass. We know this would be the outcome, because it kind-of was the outcome in 2024. Biden had major congressional victories, Bidenomics was working, he led the fight to protect Ukraine, America wasn’t directly involved in a nonsensical foreign war, he reopened a country shuttered from CoVid and had the least inflation in the industrialized world when he did it, etc. Yet he had a bad debate performance one night so he was practically shoved aside when the Democratic Party donors withheld funds and forced him out.
Trump can do everything wrong and often deliberately so, but still ride out the next two years without his party screaming for him to resign. By contrast, if a Democratic POTUS were simply mediocre, they’d have his same dismal approval ratings right now.
It just shows you how differently the two parties are perceived, and really liberalism in general. After all, the UK sure seemed to put up with more from their FIVE lousy conservative PMs before Starmer. After more than a decade of atrocious Conservative Party rule, the UK now appears to be tired of their more-liberal party after barely two years. And I can just about guarantee you that four years from now, there will be a Democratic POTUS, and they will not be “perfect” since no politician is. What will happen when they do not give every American their own personal unicorn and a stable to put it in? The heavily-funded Republicans will flip the House back because people NEVER learn the dangers in moving away from liberalism, and that is hugely depressing.
The messages that voters send to both parties is basically that “Dems must be Obama-level excellent to stay above 50%, and Republicans merely have to stay awake in cabinet meetings and not cut funds while they themselves make billions.” The massive double standard in expectations for both parties is predictable, and can be viewed anytime you turn on the TV and see Trump for the next two years whereas you won’t be seeing much more of Starmer after the next few weeks.