His Populism Isnt Popular
By Nate Silver
... Take the various iterations of the Republican health care bill ... It proposed massive cuts to Medicaid spending and would greatly have reduced subsidies for older, poorer Americans — exactly the people who helped propel Trump to victory in November. And it would have done all of this partly to finance tax cuts that primarily benefited the wealthy. It was one of the least populist bills that one can imagine ...
Or take Trump’s decision to fire FBI Director James Comey. There was nothing especially populist about the Comey firing, which put Trump — who campaigned as a “law and order” president — at odds with the intelligence community ...
... The “travel ban” that Trump implemented at Bannon’s urging in January wasn’t all that unpopular, but its implementation was a mess, leading it to be repeatedly struck down by the courts until the Supreme Court finally allowed a narrow version of it in June. Trump’s Charlottesville response, which was reportedly cheered on by Bannon, has also been a disaster ...
The overall result is a president who has yet to sign any major legislation into law — and who has a much greater base of opposition than a base of support ...
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trumps-populism-isnt-popular-but-thats-on-him-not-bannon/
