Trump Could Address These Legitimacy Questions - But He Won't - By Joy-Ann Reid
Polls show Americans already disapprove of the job Trump is doingthe one he hasnt even started yet. He could take steps here, but of course, he wont.
JOY-ANN REID
01.14.17 11:03 AM ET
The shadow of illegitimacy stalks President-elect Donald Trump. Those are not words to be written lightly. But they are becoming harder to avoid as Trumps presidency-in-waiting becomes increasingly mired in scandal before its even begun.
Civil rights hero John Lewis shocked the world on Friday by saying bluntly that Trump is not a legitimate president (Trump responded in a Tweet on Saturday, hitting Lewis for the state of his Georgia congressional district). Lewis put his considerable moral authority on the line to make such a bold statement though anyone who knows his history knows that hes always been bold. But he is hardly the first person to think it: that this president increasingly lacks the core element required for a broad sense of legitimacy: strong public confidence that he was honestly and fairly elected, and will act in the national interest, and not some other interest financial or worse as president.
Its not that Americans, including Lewis, are refusing to accept that Donald Trump will be the president once hes sworn in, the way birthers, including Donald Trump, did to Barack Obama. But birthers were a tiny fraction of the public, and their insane theory of Obamas secret Kenyan birth remained confined inside the Republican Party base. Obama entered office with approval ratings approaching 70 percent, and with even some Republican voters basking in the glow of his election as the nations first black president.
Trump, on the other hand, is now officially the most unpopular President-elect in modern American history. According to a new Quinnipiac poll, fewer than four in 10 Americans approve of the President-elect. Trump is upside down in terms of public confidence in nearly every measure, from his honesty, to his leadership skills, to whether he is level-headed, and even whether he will help improve peoples personal finances, which was his strongest suit going into the election. Just four in 10 believe he can unite the country. Trump retains just two majority positions that are positive: on his intelligence and the notion that he is a strong person. But even those measures are sliding.
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