A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

President Donald J. Trump is perhaps the least popular Chief Executive in U.S. history, according to the latest Gallup poll, published today by the venerable management consulting and polling organization founded in 1935 by George Gallup. Per today's poll , Mr. Trump's job approval rating shows that only 39% of Americans think the President is doing a good job. This is a slight improvement over the low poll results mentioned this weekend, when it was reported that only 37% of Americans believe that Trump is a good commander in chief. The low poll ratings come after the White House released Mr. Trump's proposed budget, America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again. This is the controversial preliminary plan by budget manager Mick Mulvaney to increase defense spending by $54 billion and fund the Mexican Wall - the President's pet project - with an additional $21.6 billion. To offset these expensive projects without raising taxes or endangering the ...

President Donald J. Trump has been in the White House for nearly three months now, and after setting a historical record for being the least popular incoming Chief Executive, he now holds another - he is the least popular occupant of the White House at a relatively early point in his Administration. According to the latest Gallup poll,  only 42% of Americans approve of the President's on-the-job performance. No other President in modern times, including Richard M. Nixon or George W. Bush, has ever begun his term in office with such low approval ratings. Though his supporters insist that the Twitterer-in-Chief can make America great again if those pesky liberals ("libtards" or "snowflakes") will just stop protesting and let him and Stephen K. Bannon turn America into a right-wing authoritarian state, most of us think that Mr. Trump is doing the opposite. Take, for instance, the President's "America First" budget. According to a report by...

As February 2017 comes to its 28th and final day, we here at A Certain Point of View checked the Gallup Daily poll to see if President Donald J. Trump's popularity ratings have changed since Friday. Not surprisingly, Mr. Trump's job approval rating is still abysmally low. Per today's daily poll, only 42% of Americans approve of the President's performance one month into his administration. Of course, Mr. Trump and his base will say that all negative polls are "fake" and that a vast left-wing conspiracy led by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, George Soros, Bernie Sanders, Elvis Presley, and the Loch Ness monster is behind every "fake news" article, critical blog post, and angry crowd of protesters. Perhaps the President's job approval ratings would go up if Mr. Trump wasn't such a narcissist who constantly obsesses about crowd sizes at his rallies and speeches, or if he decided to tell the truth more often. And calling off his Adminis...

In 1975, when I was a fifth-grade student at Tropical Elementary in Miami, Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update" was anchored by the wonderfully funny Chevy Chase. Back then, the show was still known as NBC's Saturday Night, and the cast (known as The Not Ready For Prime Time Players) included Chase, John Belushi, Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman, Gilda Radner, Dan Ackroyd, and Garrett Morris. Anyway, back in '75, SNL writers gave Chase one of the show's earliest catchphrases - "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead...." when they decided to spoof the seemingly endless reports on NBC Nightly News earlier that year about the Spanish dictator's long string of illnesses that culminated in his death on November 20, 1975. Apparently, the running gag (there would be many Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead updates over the next two seasons) was a comedic swipe aimed at Nightly News anchor John Chancellor, who insisted that the newscas...

One month into his tumultuous Presidential term, Donald J. Trump’s approval ratings remain abysmally low. According to the latest Gallup polls, only 42% percent of Americans approve the way Mr. Trump is doing his job as the nation’s Chief Executive. Although Mr. Trump enjoys strong support from Republicans (87% of GOP voters who participated in last Friday’s poll say he is doing well at his job), 92% of Democrats and 65% of independents think otherwise.  ‘ Of course, Mr. Trump and his supporters dismiss polls that do not reflect positively on the President’s policies or his personal behavior. Don’t believe me? This is Mr. Trump, in his own words: “Any negative polls are fake news, just like the CNN, ABC, NBC polls in the election. Sorry, people want border security and extreme vetting.” What goes unsaid, of course, is that any positive polls are real news. As opposed to Kellyanne Conway’s “alternative facts.” Speaking of “alternative facts,” Mr. Trump (and n...

Donald J. Trump, the 45th President of the United States, has been in the White House for less than a month. In that short period of time, he has become the least popular Chief Executive in American history, thanks to his abrasive, take-no-crap-from-anyone demeanor, his penchant for divisiveness and "rule by fear," and just plain dishonesty. As a result of such unpopular decisions as banning people from seven Muslim countries from entering the U.S. with visas, insisting on building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border (and saying that Mexico will pay for it), waging a vigorous war against the press, and dissembling about why former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was asked to resign over Flynn's pre-inauguration conversation with Russia's ambassador about the possible easing of sanctions, Mr. Trump's popularity continues to spiral downward. Per the latest Gallup poll (February 17, 2017), the President's popularity hit a historically low po...