“On the Holmes Front,” with Frank Holmes
“It’s Morning in America.” Ronald Reagan used that slogan in a series of upbeat campaign ads in 1984, as he coasted to a 49-state landslide re-election.
That short, simple epitaph reminded Americans how dark things had been under his weak and incompetent predecessor, Jimmy Carter – and how far America had come in just four years.
For the first time under Reagan, a majority of Americans consistently described themselves as “satisfied with the way things are going” in this country. For House Minority Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her political allies, that’s bad news heading into a midterm election.
That important number – the people who believe things are going well – is the pulse of national politics. It tells the slick consultants, talking heads, and K-Street lobbyists how things are going in real America.
Since the Gallup poll started measuring this level in 1979, it has averaged 37% – but American citizens haven’t been that happy in a long, long time.
In 2008, the level dropped to 7% – and it never matched its historical average during the Obama administration… but I bet you didn’t hear that in the mainstream news.
Now, for the first time in 15 years, America’s pulse sounds healthy again.
The percentage of Americans who are satisfied with America under Donald Trump reached 38% in May and June – the highest since September 2003.
It’s no surprise that Republicans, older folks, people who live in rural parts of the country, and Americans without a college degree are happiest with Trump’s performance.
In fact, 68% of Republicans are happy with Trump – which is quite a turnaround, considering the GOP powerbrokers did everything they could to deny him the nomination in 2016.
But there are some surprises from Gallup about just who has been warming up to the president.
The percentage of women who are satisfied with their country under Donald Trump increased more than men – up by 10% in just two months.
That’s an amazing surge for the first president ever to be the target of a so-called “Women’s March.”
People with a college degree, or some college, are almost equally happy with the president as those with no degree.
The only group that’s absolutely miserable are Democrats, with just a 13% satisfaction level – and they have reason to cry.
Registered independents who are satisfied with Trump’s America have seen an 11-point upswing since March.
The president brought Reagan Democrats and independents to the polls for the first time since 1988 – and they delivered states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and they came close to giving him Minnesota, where he gave a rousing speech this week.
This poll is a lot more than a measure of people’s patriotism; it has huge political ramifications.
“Though the vast majority of Americans have expressed pride in their country in polls stretching back more than 30 years, their pride has not meant they were satisfied with the way things were going,” Gallup explained. “This has been especially true during times of economic duress – though measuring the public’s satisfaction with the nation encompasses far more than economics.”
Things have been going Trump’s way since inauguration, and they’re only getting better.
The president’s approval rating tied its all-time high of 45%, according to another Gallup poll released last Sunday.
Even more people approve of his handling of North Korea, supporting his actions by a two-to-one margin in a USA Today phone survey.
Consumer confidence rose in May and hit “historically strong levels” under the Trump economic boom.
The Russian investigation that Democrats hoped would sink his presidency got shipwrecked on the facts, and its wreckage laid bare the illegal underbelly of the Swamp conspiring against the majority of American voters.
Now 51% of Americans now think the Mueller probe was “politically motivated,” according to a new CBS poll – and that figure will only go higher when inspector general Michael Horowitz releases his next round of reports on the Obama administration’s anti-Trump frame-up job.
And while both parties are excited about going to the polls in this November’s midterm elections, Republicans are more eager to vote than they have been in any midterm since 1994 (except for 2010’s historic victory).
Americans are moving off of food stamps, out of their parents’ basements, into newly created jobs, and holding their heads high when the president stands up for their country instead of apologizing for its ancient wrongs and bowing-and-scraping before foreign leaders.
Obama dug this country into such a hole that it’s not quite morning in America, but you can see the sunrise.
— Frank Holmes is a reporter for The Horn News. He is a veteran journalist and an outspoken conservative that talks about the news that was in his weekly article, “On The Holmes Front.”