With Donald Trump set to give his State of the Union address, the most recent poll from Gallup on how Americans view the state of the nation makes for interesting reading. Democrats and Independents have gone from positive in 2017 to negative in 2018, while Republicans have gone in the other direction.
Trump can correctly say in his State of the Union speech Tuesday night that the citizens of the nation are more positive about the nation’s current status now than they were a few years ago, but he would need to acknowledge that these positive sentiments have a long way to go to reach historical high points. If he says the prospects for the future are bright, he will be in tune with just over half of Americans (53%) who expect the situation five years from now to be positive. However, Trump would need to acknowledge that an even larger majority (60%) feel things were positive five years ago.
The sight of Republican members of Congress leaping to their feet and applauding during the address, while Democrats sit on their hands, will in many ways exemplify the views of Republicans and Democrats watching the speech at home. News reports have indicated that Trump may try to strike a bipartisan tone in his speech, which if true would be a much-needed shift from the strikingly polarized ways in which Republicans and Democrats are currently looking at the world.
Here’s another curiosity. In the wake of the pornstar payoff scandal, evangelical Christians have rallied around Trump. The Washington Post writes:
When news broke this month about President Trump’s alleged affair with porn star Stormy Daniels, it seemed the kind of story that would devastate a group of voters once known as the “Moral Majority.”
This is the Trump era, and for white evangelicals, the days since the Daniels report have offered proof the president remains righteous to them in ways that matter far more.
Trump stood among antiabortion activists in the Rose Garden, where he praised the mission of March for Life participants on the Mall. His administration opened an office to protect health-care workers who refuse to provide services that run counter to their religious convictions. The White House announced it would fast-track the move of the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
The actions are among the latest in a remarkable string of overtures to religious conservatives coming from an unlikely champion of their agenda.
A year into Trump’s presidency, white evangelicals are rewarding him with some of his strongest support, even amid continuing salacious headlines about his personal foibles.
A Washington Post-ABC News poll released this month found 68 percent of white evangelical Protestants approve of Trump’s job performance — a figure that is nearly double that of the population as a whole and that is higher than any other religious or demographic group.
More on that story here.