Trump Gallup Polls: President George W. Bush Yielded Similar Results

Donald Trump polls are all over the place, both literally and figuratively, but a new Trump poll by Gallup indicates that more Americans than not are dissatisfied with how the world likely sees the U.S. Fifty-seven percent said they believe the world views the U.S. unfavorably, with just over four in 10 saying they think America is still highly respected.

In addition to these stats, only 29 percent believe President Trump is respected by world leaders. Compare that to sixty-seven percent when Obama first took office in 2009.

According to Gallup, this assessment of the U.S. world standing is the worst it has been in ten years, and even one year ago, Americans voted more positively than negatively in this specific poll.

This Trump poll was conducted during the first five days of February, meaning Trump had been serving for only 11 days when the first poll takers cast their votes. The last time this poll yielded a similar result was in 2007 when President George W. Bush had been in the midst of serving his second term, and at that time only 40 percent of Americans had believed the U.S. was still a highly respectable nation.

Interestingly enough, this same poll conducted in 2002, which was during Bush’s first term and less than six months after two al-Qaeda-hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center in the worst terror attack on American soil, 72 percent of U.S. citizens thought the country was seen positively by the rest of the world.

Gallup notes that one of the factors contributing to such a significant dive this year in Americans’ perception of U.S. worldwide favorability is that Democrats overwhelmingly believe the country is seen negatively because there’s a Republican president in office. Likewise, right-wing Americans voting positively in this Trump poll went up from last year at this time, when there was a Democratic president in office.

To illustrate this point, last year close to seven out of 10 Democrats thought the world viewed the country favorably. This year, that number has slipped 37 percentage points to 31 percent. Republican views have been somewhat revived from a year ago, from 39 percent last year to 54 percent now, though it is not enough of an increase to make up for the decrease in Democrat satisfaction.

To make these Trump polls all the more interesting, a recent poll by Rasmussen Reports reveals that 41 percent of the American electorate (those likely to vote in an election) believe it’s damaging to America when Trump’s opposition in the media and from Washington Democrats are publicly critical of the president’s decisions on foreign policy.

To be clear, Trump’s controversial travel ban would be a foreign policy decision for which he has received much backlash from the media, politicians and U.S. citizens.

This is almost the same amount as the percentage of Americans who said they believe the country is still respected by world leaders, which is a bit contradictory, as wouldn’t one think this 41 percent should be higher to reflect the number of U.S. citizens from the Gallup poll (57 percent) who think foreign leaders view America negatively.

This Trump poll indicates that most Americans do not blame hostile critique from Washington elites and the press for the country’s declining reputation. They blame Trump himself and not necessarily the media coverage of Trump that the entire world sees and likely makes decisions from.

In relation to the first Trump poll, a different poll by Gallup a month before the “America’s worldwide standing” one revealed that close to the same amount of Americans think the United States will be better off four years from now than those who don’t think it will be improved. Forty-eight percent said it would be better, and 46 percent believe it won’t be.

The bipartisan divide with this Trump poll is huge, as more than four out of five Republicans think the U.S. will improve by 2020 and only about one in seven Democrats agree with that prediction.

Again, George W. Bush was president when this Gallup poll last saw similar results, Bush’s being that 46 percent of Americans thought the country would be better in four years and 42 percent thought it would be worse.

Interestingly, President Bush had also won the 2000 election without also winning the popular vote, as with Trump.

Encuesta Gallup: Aprobación de Donald Trump es inferior a la que registraba George Bush luego de huracán Katrina. pic.twitter.com/l8ztbciu1A

— US Election 2024 (@Eleccion_USA) January 24, 2017

In comparison to when this Gallup poll was conducted prior to Bill Clinton being sworn in, about five out of 10 Americans said the country would be better after his first term, and about three out of 10 said otherwise.

These Donald Trump polls having similar outcomes to those done 10 to 15 years earlier could have many explanations. Bush was also a highly disliked candidate and he was, of course, also Republican. Maybe it’s worth looking at the ends of Clinton and Obama’s presidencies to see if there are any consistencies as to why people voted the way they did, besides the fact that a Republican president came in to relieve them of their duties.

One thing we know for sure is that polls are never-ending and ever-changing, even Trump polls. Who knows how these findings will change a year from now and what significant comparisons will be made in the future.

[Featured Image by Pool/Getty Images]