Trump locks up 5% of American voters who get warm fuzzies when looking at a Confederate flag
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Just a week after Donald Trump used the patriotic backdrop of Mount Rushmore to declare his fealty to the memory of dead traitors, the strategy doesn’t seem to be polling so well among the American public. A new ABC News/Ispos survey released on Friday showed that more than two-thirds of Americans disapprove of his handling of race relations, 67%-32%.
The same poll found that just 5% of Americans report having a “positive reaction” when seeing a Confederate flag displayed, while 43% said they have a “negative reaction” and 52% relayed feeling agnostic on the issue. That 5% is almost surely an undercount, but it still represents the fact that only the slimmest of slim slices of the electorate is proud enough about their warm feelings for a symbol of racism and bigotry to relay them to a pollster.
Still, Trump is reportedly “going with his gut” on continuing to stoke racial divisions, snatching that 5% right out from under presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden. Poor Biden, so hapless compared to Trump’s cunning.
Shortly after July 4—when Trump warned of “angry mobs” threatening to “wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children”—he doubled down on his statues of dead traitors agenda. Trump not only criticized NASCAR for banning the Confederate flag at its events, he also demanded an apology from Black NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace over what he called a noose “HOAX.”
On Wednesday, Trump continued, telling RealClear Politics, “If the Republicans don’t toughen up and get smart and get strong and protect our heritage and protect our country, I think they’re going to have a very tough election.”
Vice President Mike Pence also pounced on the dead traitor issue Thursday in an “exclusive” interview with Breitbart News, accusing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of a “surrender to the mob.” Pelosi had said that “people will do what they do” when asked about a Christopher Columbus statue torn down in Richmond this week. Though Pelosi also added that it would be much safer to have statues taken down if the public will is there to do it.
During an appearance on Capitol Hill Friday, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed that Trump is indeed defending dead traitors with his order to safeguard Confederate monuments. “[T]hose officers turned their back on their oath,” Gen. Mark Milley said of the Confederate generals whose names still grace some military bases. “It was an act of treason, at the time, against the Union, against the Stars and Stripes, against the U.S. Constitution,” Milley added, testifying in support of renaming those bases.
But at this point, it’s safe to say that Trump wrapped up that 5% of Confederate nostalgists before Biden even knew what hit him. Trump assured reporters Friday that his campaign is “doing very well” in what he called “the real polls.” Hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.