Americans don't trust Trump, and women hate his guts

Most Americans think Trump is a lousy dealmaker who can’t be trusted and doesn’t understand the problems of ordinary people — and women especially think so.

In a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, only 35 percent of Americans said they are confident Trump can make the right decisions for the country’s future, compared to 64 percent who disagree.

Most of those who don’t trust Trump really, really don’t trust him. Almost half of Americans, 48 percent, say they have no confidence in Trump “at all” to do the right thing for the country, compared to about 30 percent who feel the same negative intensity about either Republicans or Democrats in Congress.

Majorities of Americans also give Trump poor marks on specific leadership abilities, like having the right personality and temperament for the office, being honest and trustworthy, and understanding the problems of people like them.

Of course, Trump isn’t exactly known for being an even-tempered or empathetic person. But most Americans don’t even think Trump is any good at the few things his supporters claim he excels at: bringing “change” to Washington and making political deals.

Both men and women hold these negative assessments of Trump. But there’s also a huge gender gap between men, who are more evenly split on Trump, and women — who overwhelmingly can’t stand him.

Most women (55 percent) have a “strongly” unfavorable view of Trump in general, compared to 35 percent of men.

Women are also much less likely to give Trump credit for making political deals; just 25 percent say he’s good at them, compared to 48 percent of men.

Another poll released on Friday found that Trump’s current approval rating, 37 percent, is the worst of any president in the entire 72-year history of presidential approval polling.

This record is mostly driven by Trump’s record-low 27 percent approval rating among women, compared to 49 percent approval among men.

Trump got the worst marks from men on the question of basic empathy, or whether Trump “understands your problems.” Just 41 percent of men and 27 percent of women agreed with that statement.

The empathy question, ABC notes, “can provide cushioning for a politician when the chips are down, as it did for Clinton and Barack Obama alike.” But Trump doesn’t have that cushion when he screws up in other ways.

And not only has Trump screwed up spectacularly in every possible way during his first two years in office, his most recent government shutdown debacle might be his most spectacular screw-up yet.

By forcing the longest government shutdown in history over funding for his useless border wall, Trump caused unnecessary and self-inflicted damage to the economy and to the lives of millions of Americans.

No wonder Americans don’t trust him.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.