Leadership ratings revisited

Picking apart personal approval and preferred prime minister ratings in the Morrison era.

BludgerTrack’s leadership approval and preferred prime ministership readings have been in limbo since last August’s leadership change, since it was necessary to accumulate a certain amount of data before Morrison-era trends could usefully be generated. I have now finally got around to doing something about this, the results of which can be found through the link below:

This exercise has to contend with the very substantial idiosyncrasies of the various pollsters, of which three produce data that can meaningfully be compared with each other: Newspoll, Essential and Ipsos (there are also a handful of small-sample Morgan results in the mix). This is done by calculating a trend exclusively from Newspoll, determining the other pollsters’ average deviations from that trend, and adjusting their results accordingly. For whatever reason, Newspoll appears to be a particularly tough marker, which means the other pollsters are adjusted very substantially downwards on approval and upwards on disapproval:

Ipsos Essential
PM approval -11.0% -3.1%
PM disapproval +8.9% +8.6%
OL approval -5.5% -1.0%
OL disapproval +2.4% +9.5%
PM preferred -4.8% -0.3%

“PM preferred” refers to the size of the Prime Minister’s lead over the Opposition Leader in preferred prime minister polling – so Ipsos, for example, records relatively large leads for the Prime Minister in comparison with Newspoll, and is adjusted accordingly.

The job of charting trendlines through the spread of results is complicated by some notable outliers at around the time of the leadership transition. Malcolm Turnbull’s critics on the right are very keen on an Ipsos poll conducted over the last week of his prime ministership, as it is the only evidence polling has to offer that the Coalition’s present dismal position is not entirely down to the avoidable disaster of Turnbull’s removal. After a period of fairly consistent 51-49 results from all pollsters, this poll found Labor’s lead blowing out to 55-45 – and Malcolm Turnbull down nine on approval and up ten on disapproval. However, the BludgerTrack trend is not overly responsive to single poll results, so it records no sudden decline at the end of Turnbull’s tenure – only the levelling off an improving trend going back to late 2017.

Immediately after the leadership change, two pollsters posed questions on preferred prime minister, though not leadership approval. These produced very different results – a 39-33 lead for Bill Shorten from Newspoll, and a 39-29 lead for Scott Morrison from Essential. Newspoll is given a heavier weighting than Essential, so the trend follows its lead in finding Shorten with a very short-lived lead immediately after the leadership change. However, none of the fifteen poll results have replicated a lead for Shorten, so it is entirely possible that the Newspoll result was an outlier and the lead never existed in the first place.

The bigger picture is that Scott Morrison started well on net approval, but has now settled in roughly where Malcolm Turnbull was in his final months; that he is under-performing Turnbull on preferred prime minister; and that Bill Shorten’s net rating, while still not great, has been on a steady upward path since the leadership change.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

2,082 comments on “Leadership ratings revisited”

Comments Page 16 of 42
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  1. Barney in Go Dau

    So why do they need a wall?

    Perhaps you could ask Barak Obama ? He reckoned they needed the Secure Fence Act of 2006 👿

  3. poroti
    says:
    Thursday, January 10, 2019 at 11:54 am
    Barney in Go Dau
    So why do they need a wall?
    Perhaps you could ask Barak Obama ? He reckoned they needed the Secure Fence Act of 2006
    _______________________
    Don’t bring that up poroti, you might actually complicate things and undermine the Trump hate rally.

  4. Sohar @ #744 Thursday, January 10th, 2019 – 11:50 am

    Why do posters here respond with personal abuse if they disagree with what another posters says? Surely the only way to respond would be with clear and considered counter-arguments. It is childish to attack the person, rather than the argument.

    That’s been tried. All you get is abuse as a reply. First. Surely, you, yourself, aren’t so blind that you haven’t seen that?

    So, we just don’t bother any more.

  5. nath @ #752 Thursday, January 10th, 2019 – 11:55 am

    poroti
    says:
    Thursday, January 10, 2019 at 11:54 am
    Barney in Go Dau
    So why do they need a wall?
    Perhaps you could ask Barak Obama ? He reckoned they needed the Secure Fence Act of 2006
    _______________________
    Don’t bring that up poroti, you might actually complicate things and undermine the Trump hate rally.

    So you love the idea of a ‘Big, Beautiful Wall’?

  7. Trump’s would-be wall and Hungary’s fence – along with the British ‘hostile environment’ and discrimination against the Windrush Generation – have one thing in common. They are premised on racist assumptions, fear-mongering and resentments. They endeavour to maintain the privileges of their respective dominant white-skinned castes.

    dtt, the completely-reprehensible-grub, is exploiting racism for political reasons. Some things get better. dtt never changes.

  8. Well I know that the Unions in the USA are weakened by vast numbers of illegal workers, 12 million. Construction sites are nothing like they are here. Vast numbers of industries have terrible pay and conditions because of cheap labour. It’s a very real problem that has huge effects outside of the ‘wall’ issue.

  10. Trump needs 10,000 workers, 10 years and five times the money for wall: experts

    Washington: The wall that US President Donald Trump wants to build along more than 1600 kilometres of the US-Mexico border would take an estimated 10,000 construction workers more than 10 years to build, say construction industry experts.

    The $US5.7 billion in funding Trump requested during a primetime Oval Office address on Tuesday would stretch only as far as 370 kilometres, according to estimates.

    The full version of Trump’s envisioned border wall – featuring rarely tested heights cast over almost unimaginable distances – would cost at least $US25 billion, said Ed Zarenski, who teaches construction estimation at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts.

    https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/trump-s-wall-would-need-10-000-workers-10-years-and-five-times-more-money-experts-20190110-p50qh9.html

  11. briefly
    says:
    They endeavour to maintain the privileges of their respective dominant white-skinned castes.
    ________________________
    The vast millions of illegals working for little money across a multitude of industries is doing a much better job of maintaining the caste system over there.

  14. poroti @ #751 Thursday, January 10th, 2019 – 7:54 am

    Barney in Go Dau

    So why do they need a wall?

    Perhaps you could ask Barak Obama ? He reckoned they needed the Secure Fence Act of 2006 👿

    And wasn’t that a success!

    Impact and effects

    Illegal border-crossings

    A report in May 2008 by the Congressional Research Service found “strong indication” that illegal border-crossers had simply found new routes. A 2017 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, citing U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data, found that from fiscal year 2010 through fiscal year 2015, the U.S.-Mexico border fence had been breached 9,287 times, at an average cost of $784 per breach to repair. The same GAO report concluded that “CBP cannot measure the contribution of fencing to border security operations along the southwest border because it has not developed metrics for this assessment.” GAO noted that because the government lacked such data, it was unable to assess the effectiveness of border fencing, and therefore could not “identify the cost effectiveness of border fencing compared to other assets the agency deploys, including Border Patrol agents and various surveillance technologies.”

    The fence is routinely climbed or otherwise circumvented. The GAO reported in 2017 that both pedestrian and vehicle barriers have been defeated by various methods, including using ramps to drive vehicles “up and over” vehicle fencing in the sector; scaling, jumping over, or breaching pedestrian fencing; burrowing or tunneling underground; and even using small aircraft. New York Times op-ed writer Lawrence Downes wrote in 2013: “A climber with a rope can hop it in less than half a minute. … Smugglers with jackhammers tunnel under it. They throw drugs and rocks over it. The fence is breached not just by sunlight and shadows, but also the hooded gaze of drug-cartel lookouts, and by bullets. Border agents describe their job as an unending battle of wits, a cat-mouse game with the constant threat of violence.”

    Environment

    Fencing built under the 2006 Secure Fence Act caused habitat fragmentation that adversely affected wildlife, including endangered wildlife. A 2011 study published in the peer-reviewed journal Diversity and Distributions determined that the habitat fragmentation determined that “small range size is associated with a higher risk of extinction, and for some species, the barriers reduce range by as much as 75%.” The study identified the most “at risk” species as the Arroyo toad (Anaxyrus californicus), California red-legged frog (Rana draytonii), black-spotted newt (Notophthalmus meridionalis), Pacific pond turtle (Clemmys marmorata), and jaguarundi (Puma yagouaroundi). The study also identified coastal California, coastal Texas, and the Madrean Sky Island Archipelago of southeastern Arizona as the three border regions where the barrier posed the greatest risk to wildlife. In Texas, for example, “the border barrier affects 60% to 70% of the habitat in the South Texas Wildlife Refuge Complex, which includes the Laguna Atascosa, Lower Rio Grande Valley, and Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuges.”

    Violence

    A paper by University of Pennsylvania political scientist Benjamin Laughlin estimates that the Secure Fence Act caused at least 2000 additional deaths in the border region. The “construction of the border fence caused fighting between drug cartels by changing the value of territory for smuggling, undermining agreements between cartels.”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Fence_Act_of_2006

  16. It’s actually the so-called, by those who want to demonise them, ‘illegals’ (as Trump also illegally refers to them), who allow American Citizens to monopolise the better paying jobs and refuse to do the back-breaking jobs the ‘illegals’ are forced to do.

  18. I think a wall would be futile in any case, but I’m not blind to the outcomes of having 12 million underpaid undocumented workers in the US economy. When you add that to their already low minimum wages and weak unions. Well, go see for yourself.

  19. nath

    Not just from the El Cheapo exploited illegal immigrants.NAFTA was signed by Bubba Clinton but it was an inherited Republican ‘plan’ . One aimed in part to smash a couple of the few remaining powerful unions. United Auto Workers for instance.Worked a treat . Production quickly shifted over to exploited Mexican side of the border.

  21. Rocket Rocket:

    Interestingly many were transported for 7 or 14 years, but most of those stayed on rather than going back to Britain.

    It’s not that interesting when you consider how much passage back to Britain would have cost.

  23. Latham is certainly dangerous.

    That thoroughly inaccurate manifesto reads credibly which means he will be a shoe-in for the NSW Upper House.

    I wonder if he will work some other One Nation person in. That will be more problematic for him because he is not a ” sharing caring people person”.

  24. The great irony is that historically the Republicans were dead against stopping the flow of cheap labour into the USA. It is actually amazing that it took until 2016 until they had a candidate who actually energised their base over the issue.

  25. Barney in Go Dau @ #209 Thursday, January 10th, 2019 – 10:49 am

    ddt

    I’m glad you’re amused.

    As for the wall, you describe the USA-Mexico border well.

    It largely consists of nature barriers – rivers, deserts, mountains, with some fenced areas complete with barbed wire.

    Geography
    Border region
    The Mexico–United States border extends 3,145 kilometers (1,954 mi), in addition to the maritime boundaries of 29 kilometers (18 mi) in the Pacific Ocean and 19 kilometers (12 mi) in the Gulf of Mexico. According to the International Boundary and Water Commission, the continental border follows the middle of the Rio Grande—according to the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo between the two nations, “along the deepest channel” (also known as the thalweg)—from its mouth on the Gulf of Mexico a distance of 2,020 kilometers (1,260 mi) to a point just upstream of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez. It then follows an alignment westward overland and it is marked by monuments for a distance of 859 kilometers (534 mi) to the Colorado River, when it reaches its highest elevation at the intersection with the Continental Divide. It then follows the middle of that river toward the north with a distance of 39 kilometers (24 mi), and ultimately follows an alignment overland toward the west and marked by monuments with a distance of 227 kilometers (141 mi) to the Pacific Ocean.

    So why do they need a wall?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico%E2%80%93United_States_border

    Why do we need boat turnbacks, Manus island and Nauru.

    The reality is that MILLIONS cross the US/Mexican border. According to Wikipedia illegal immigrants represent 3.5% of the US population. in the Australian context that would mean that there would be about 1 million boat people in Australia.

    Now I ask all of you how would YOU respond and critically how would the ALP voters in Longman and Lindsay respond. I would see each of you here arguing with the greens and being tougher than Dutton.

    Barney, obviously the current border is not sufficient to stop mass immigration.

    The effect of such large scale immigration on US wages and the living standards of the rest of the population is obviously significant.

    thing is that the US set up its open door policy in the growth years when the economy was booming, when the full citizens could get good jobs in unionized workplaces and they were happy enough to have Mexicans doing the fruit picking and cleaning. But NOW the existing residents need the jobs and hence immigration on such a massive scale is not sustainable.

  27. Jorge Ramos: Trump Is the Wall

    It’s not just about a physical barrier. He wants to hang an “unwelcome” sign on a nation built by immigrants.

    Donald Trump wants more than a wall.

    The president, once again, has created his own reality, manufactured a crisis, invented an invasion, criminalized immigrants, made up facts and, in a nationally televised speech on Tuesday, argued for a new wall at the United States-Mexico border. “How much more American blood must we shed before Congress does its job?” he asked from the White House.

    We also know that almost half of all undocumented immigrants arrive by plane or with a visa. They come legally as tourists or visitors and simply overstay their visas. The tallest fence cannot stop that.

    Nor would a new wall prevent the flow of illegal drugs entering the country, as Mr. Trump claimed in his speech. Most drug seizures happen at ports of entry. And as long as we have more than 28 million Americans regularly using illegal drugs, we will have drug dealers in Mexico and the rest of Latin America moving their products to the most profitable market in the world.

    This is about more than just a wall. Mr. Trump promised it in 2015, in the same speech in which he announced his candidacy, the same speech in which he called Mexican immigrants rapists, criminals and drug traffickers. His goal was to exploit the anxiety and resentment of voters in an increasingly multicultural, multiethnic society. Mr. Trump’s wall is a symbol for those who want to make America white again.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/09/opinion/jorge-ramos-trump-wall.html

  28. Rocket Rocket:

    [‘I sometimes think of the judges who sentenced those people to transportation, and wonder how their own descendants are faring compared to those of the people who were transported.’]

    It’s interesting to note how attitudes change. When I was a lad, you didn’t reveal you have convict antecedents but it’s now almost mandatory.

    As for the judiciary’s descendants, in the absence of any evidence, I’d hazard a guess that those having convict kin may’ve done better, on the basis that the privileged-class were often profligate, but I can’t take that any further.

    In 18th century Britain there were 222 crimes which carried the death penalty, the vast majority of which were crimes against property, known as the “Bloody Code”. The tide changed somewhat in the early 19th century, where judges and juries took the view that the punishment for, say, theft over the value of 5 shillings was out of kilter with the crime, leading to increased transportation in lieu of the death sentence. In the mid-19th century, people like Wilberforce and Dickens did a lot to improve the lot of the poor.

  29. Trump needs the wall so he can place a big beautiful door in it, just as he promissed during the election campaign.
    Without the wall where does the door go? Makes sense to me.

  30. This appears to be where it is headed

    Tea Pain
    Tea Pain
    @TeaPainUSA
    ·
    3h
    The WALL and MUELLER are quickly becomin’ the same thing for Trump. Cracks are formin’ for wall support, which will serve as good practice for Republicans to turn their back on him when Mueller drops his nuke.

    Americans increasingly blame Trump for shutdown: poll
    thehill.com

  31. Conservative criticism of AOC that doesn’t focus on her clothes, dance moves or other facile issues.

    The real problem with Ocasio-Cortez is not how she dresses or where she comes from. It’s that she is an uber-progressive — a self-proclaimed “democratic socialist” — who cares more about ideological correctness than factual correctness. The Post’s Fact Checker has documented her reign of error. She claimed that “unemployment is low because everyone has two jobs” (only 5 percent of people actually have two jobs); that “ICE is required to fill 34,000 beds with detainees every single night” (an urban myth); and that the “upper-middle class does not exist anymore in America” (not only does it exist, it’s growing).

    Ocasio-Cortez has been particularly inventive, if not especially persuasive, in trying to explain how she would pay for her socialist agenda, including free health care, free college tuition, and jobs. She mystified observers when she said: “Why aren’t we incorporating the cost of all the funeral expenses of those who died because they can’t afford access to health care? That is part of the cost of our system.” That is the kind of word salad you expect from our president. Worse, she earned four Pinocchios when she asserted that the Pentagon had a pool of $21 trillion that was unaccounted for, and that could be used to pay two-thirds of the cost of Medicare-for-all. That the Pentagon has trouble tracking transactions doesn’t mean it has vaults full of cash that can be raided for progressive priorities.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/01/08/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-shouldnt-approach-her-facts-way-trump-does/?utm_term=.6eb5ad689931

    He says in some ways she reminds him of Sarah Palin who was another young (ish) woman who made a big splash in national politics before having her own lack of knowledge exposed. I think the comparison with Palin is harsh – AOC isn’t even 30 yet and has no governing experience. Palin was governor of Alaska at the time she was picked for McCain’s VP candidate.

  34. Fess

    Agree with you re occasio Cortez.

    she should knuckle down and do the hard yards getting much needed experience. Although she doesn’t give me a great feeling either.

  35. “Trump’s would-be wall and Hungary’s fence – along with the British ‘hostile environment’ and discrimination against the Windrush Generation – have one thing in common. They are premised on racist assumptions, fear-mongering and resentments. They endeavour to maintain the privileges of their respective dominant white-skinned castes.

    dtt, the completely-reprehensible-grub, is exploiting racism for political reasons. Some things get better. dtt never changes.”

    Not to mention Australia’s Lib/Lab off sure mandatory and indefinite detention. Howard was ahead of the curve in playing the race card, and Labor have been too gutless to put forward a humane alternative for two decades.

    Howard changed this nation – but Beasley and Co and then Rudd were complicit in letting him do it, and now Shorten still can’t bring himself to face down right wing shock jocks and bigots despite many recent opportunities to distance himself and say ‘we are better than this’. Fraser Anning provides the perfect opportunity to say “this is where Morrison, Dutton and Abbott’s fear, smear, hatred and division populism leads to – let’s call this out every time they do it”. The LNP has never called out its own MPs who attend far right rallies and events and re-post these groups’ hatred – but there are a handful who do. Labor should call on Morrison to condemn Christensen, Porter, Molan and others who have form here. Shorten should be calling for the LNP to have a new years resolution to not play the race card and call them out whenever they do.

    Cue anti-green spittle spraying raves from right-wing labor stalwarts who think labor needs to play along with racism to win elections.

  36. briefly @ #222 Thursday, January 10th, 2019 – 11:01 am

    Trump’s would-be wall and Hungary’s fence – along with the British ‘hostile environment’ and discrimination against the Windrush Generation – have one thing in common. They are premised on racist assumptions, fear-mongering and resentments. They endeavour to maintain the privileges of their respective dominant white-skinned castes.

    dtt, the completely-reprehensible-grub, is exploiting racism for political reasons. Some things get better. dtt never changes.

    Briefly
    Yes of bloody course walls are racist, but so are human beings and if you do not at least grasp this you are destined NEVER to understand the course of world politics.

    Thanks for calling me a grub. Guess it takes one to know one.

    I am observing not calling, and recognise that whenever there is economic stress racism or tribalism comes to the fore. If there was a sever recession in Australia people in NSW and Qld would come to blows. WWI was in no sense a racist war, but it was a tribal/nationalist war. Even WWII was not initially racist.

    If you really believe in a fully open border policy everywhere then i sort of admire you but i assume you do understand the impact on yourself and family. For example say Australia took in 10% of its population in the next 10 years, then there would obviously be a need to increase taxes, cut services or both. (Unless you accept Nicholas’s just print money idea). If you are happy to accept a big cut in your pension or income then fine stick to your views, but do not assume everyone else is so altruistic.

    By the way acknowledging that there is a human tendency towards tribalism/racism is not being racist. Denying it is just stupid.

  39. Interesting how the actions of Clinton or Obama have been wheeled out.

    Leaders and governments make mistakes all the time. The question is not who made a bad mistake but whether a subsequent government, armed with all the evidence of previous outcomes, nevertheless insists on doubling or tripling down on the same action. The first is unfortunate and a great lesson for everyone. The second is utterly reprehensible.

  40. sustainable future @ #250 Thursday, January 10th, 2019 – 11:27 am

    “Trump’s would-be wall and Hungary’s fence – along with the British ‘hostile environment’ and discrimination against the Windrush Generation – have one thing in common. They are premised on racist assumptions, fear-mongering and resentments. They endeavour to maintain the privileges of their respective dominant white-skinned castes.

    dtt, the completely-reprehensible-grub, is exploiting racism for political reasons. Some things get better. dtt never changes.”

    Not to mention Australia’s Lib/Lab off sure mandatory and indefinite detention. Howard was ahead of the curve in playing the race card, and Labor have been too gutless to put forward a humane alternative for two decades.

    Howard changed this nation – but Beasley and Co and then Rudd were complicit in letting him do it, and now Shorten still can’t bring himself to face down right wing shock jocks and bigots despite many recent opportunities to distance himself and say ‘we are better than this’. Fraser Anning provides the perfect opportunity to say “this is where Morrison, Dutton and Abbott’s fear, smear, hatred and division populism leads to – let’s call this out every time they do it”. The LNP has never called out its own MPs who attend far right rallies and events and re-post these groups’ hatred – but there are a handful who do. Labor should call on Morrison to condemn Christensen, Porter, Molan and others who have form here. Shorten should be calling for the LNP to have a new years resolution to not play the race card and call them out whenever they do.

    Cue anti-green spittle spraying raves from right-wing labor stalwarts who think labor needs to play along with racism to win elections.

    Sustainable
    It was in fact Keating who first erected barbed wire cages for immigrants. Let us not hide from reality.

    I have lots of sympathy for the greens view on this ie that labor and LNP are pretty much in lockstep. it is true.

    My issue is simply that i do not believe that societies can adsorb large numbers of people with differences in times of economic stress. when the economy is booming yes they can and very little trouble arises BUT when it starts too fade tensions arise inevitably.

    I am all for immigration but think it should be tied to employment – not much point bringing in NEW immigrants if you have not work enough for those already here.

  41. As for ‘The wall’. That has nothing whatsoever to do with border security in this context. It is purely a representation of Trump’s ego and his political objectives. Just like Manus and Nauru continue to be nothing more than vicious political stunts for our government.

  43. TPOF @ #791 Thursday, January 10th, 2019 – 12:37 pm

    As for ‘The wall’. That has nothing whatsoever to do with border security in this context. It is purely a representation of Trump’s ego and his political objectives. Just like Manus and Nauru continue to be nothing more than vicious political stunts for our government.

    Which is confirmed by the varying definition of what would constitute the wall. It’s just a prop for Trump to energise his base and defy his political enemies.

  44. DaretoTread @ #117 Thursday, January 10th, 2019 – 10:23 am

    join in the chorus of condemnation of “the Wall” at the same time supporting Australia’s effective wall.

    I do not!

    Australia’s border policy sucks. It takes first-party responsibility for deliberately torturing people to death to avoid some vague notion of third-party responsibility for people choosing, almost always of their own free will (like literally any time they’re not chased onto a boat by people with guns), to undertake a risky boat ride to Australia and occasionally failing in that attempt. It’s a shitty trade-off.

  45. Interesting suggestion.

    The Bunyip
    ‏@WrittenOnWater
    6m6 minutes ago

    What government dingbat decided to allow the sale of the water rights to headwaters of the Murray-Darling to China? (Names, please). When do Australian investors get to buy the rights to the headwaters of the Yangtze?

  46. C@tmomma
    says:
    Thursday, January 10, 2019 at 12:38 pm
    Victoria @ #766 Thursday, January 10th, 2019 – 12:10 pm
    Poroti
    So you think an indefinite govt shutdown is a good move for Trump
    poroti thinks anything anti Labor or anti Democrat is good. It’s why he has found common cause with nath.
    ___________________________
    Maybe C@t’s right poroti! Let’s just suspend our critical faculties and play follow the party/leader.

  48. C@tmomma

    poroti thinks anything anti Labor or anti Democrat is good.

    Take this in the spirit of how it is intended. GAGF and please please take umbrage.

  49. TPOF @ #788 Thursday, January 10th, 2019 – 12:34 pm

    Interesting how the actions of Clinton or Obama have been wheeled out.

    Leaders and governments make mistakes all the time. The question is not who made a bad mistake but whether a subsequent government, armed with all the evidence of previous outcomes, nevertheless insists on doubling or tripling down on the same action. The first is unfortunate and a great lesson for everyone. The second is utterly reprehensible.

    Yes the Axis of Pipsqueaks on PB do it all the time. For example, one of them has reached back today to an action by the Keating government to tar Labor with forevermore. No mention of the way the Coalition have run with it for much of the subsequent time and exploited it and exacerbated it. Nope, nope, nope, it’s ALL Labor’s fault.

  50. Conservative columnist details Trump’s ‘loveless marriage’ with ‘his’ generals — and why they’re all gone

    An ex-Republican columnist described how Donald Trump’s “loveless marriage” with former military leaders has come to a close.

    “Like many a loveless marriage of convenience,” conservative Max Boot wrote in a Wednesday night Washington Post column, “the union between President Trump and ‘his’ generals has ended in recrimination and heartbreak.”

    Generals, Boot added, all share a similar set of traits that set them apart: preparation and study before acting, a personal honor code, nonpartisanship and a commitment to the United States.

    “With his insufferable boastfulness, Trump claimed, ‘I think I would have been a good general,’” the columnist wrote. “Actually, he would never have made it to first lieutenant, because his me-first ethos is so at odds with the military’s stress on service and sacrifice.”

    https://www.rawstory.com/2019/01/conservative-columnist-details-trumps-loveless-marriage-generals-theyre-gone/

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