In headlining an an article titled “One Thing Helping Trump’s Approval Rating: Some People Are Not Paying Attention – Voters were more likely to approve of President Trump’s job performance if they had not been following some of the major news stories of his first 100 days in office, a recent New York Times/Siena College poll found,” the Gray Lady does not actually acknowledge the utter fucking obviousness of that conclusion besides writing “Mr Trump has traditionally done well with lower-information voters, so it is perhaps not surprising that they are more inclined to support his presidency,” with the “perhaps” still hedging far too much on what’s as plain as Donald is orange.
Which isn’t to say the data itself or their analysis of the delta between the low/no-info respondents is somehow bad or worthless, it’s just, well “no shit” that they’re more likely to approve of him if they aren’t following the news about his incompetence, corruption, and fascist ambitions.
Anyway for the actual data: Among those who have heard about Mahmoud Khalil’s case Trump’s approval on immigration policy was 40 percent, among those who hadn’t the approval was at 55 percent. Similarly but less pronounced was the delta between those who had heard about Kilmar Abrego Garcia at 46 approve of immigration policy if they had heard of it to 54 percent if not.
On the economy there was a “Have heard about the recent changes in the stock market?” which is a bit diffuse of a question given the partial bounce back in the markets since the fat fuck’s slow motion surrender on a fight he started began: 41 percent approve of Trump’s handling of the economy if they had heard about it, 55 percent if they hadn’t. Overall Trump’s job approval is at 42 percent, of which the Times writes “little under half” of those approving had “said they had not heard much about at least some of the ups and downs of his administration’s decisions.”
Laying the blame on social media and right wing propaganda sites that “pass over entire stories, and the language used by different outlets is sometimes so wildly divergent that people may not even recognize two stories as being about the same topic,” the Times writes that nevertheless “there is some evidence that Mr Trump’s approval ratings may be falling among voters who pay little attention to the news. It is harder to know whether that drop is more because they are unhappy with current economic conditions and blaming the new administration or because they are dissatisfied with the news that has filtered through.” Guess that’s as close as they can get to “optimism” in the piece.