Month: July 2017

In normal political times, a president with a 40% Job Approval rating would be a tremendous drag on his party in the midterm elections. But these are not normal times. A look back at what happened on Election Day last November suggests that President Trump’s low ratings will not necessarily doom his party in 2018.

To begin with, just 38% of voters had a favorable opinion of Donald Trump on the day he was elected. And, only 40% said they would be optimistic if he won the presidency. Yet, despite that distinct lack of enthusiasm, 46% of all voters cast their ballot to elect Donald Trump.

One big factor is that his opponent was also viewed with apprehension. In fact, a majority of voters said they would be either concerned or scared if Hillary Clinton became president. Overall, nearly one out of five voters disliked both major party candidates. When it came time to choose between the lesser of two evils, these voters overwhelmingly preferred Trump.

Looking ahead to 2018, it is quite possible that many voters unhappy with President Trump will still consider the Democrats an even bigger concern.

And, it’s also possible that many political junkies are overestimating the importance of behavior they view as unpresidential. On the day he was elected president, just 38% of voters believed Donald Trump was qualified to be president and only 35% believed he had the right temperament for the job. But 10% of all voters considered Trump unqualified yet voted for him anyway. So did 12% who voted for the current president despite believing he didn’t have the temperament for the job.

It seems that voters were looking for something bigger than what the political elites believe are appropriate characteristics for a president.

Thirty-nine percent (39%) of voters said the most important characteristic was a candidate’s ability to bring about change. That’s not surprising given that 69% were either dissatisfied or angry with the federal government. Donald Trump won these voters overwhelmingly. The last thing they want to see is business as usual.

With all this as background for the president’s first six months in office, it seems reasonable to conclude that President Trump has met expectations. Sure, he’s unpresidential at times but most voters expected him to be. For many, though, that’s a small price to pay for adding Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.

Obviously, I have no idea what will happen between now and November 2018. If the president can somehow get the Republicans in Congress to repeal a significant portion of Obamacare, the GOP prospects might improve. If the economy keeps gaining steam, that’s even better news for the president’s party. Things could just as easily head in the opposite direction.

But these are not ordinary political times and Donald Trump is not an ordinary president. It would therefore be a mistake to assume that the midterm election results might be impacted in an ordinary way by the president’s job approval rating. There are far too many voters who disapprove of the president but disapprove of Democrats more.

On July 20, 1969 Neil Armstrong famously took “one small step for a man” and “one giant leap for mankind.” He and Buzz Aldrin stepped into the history books that day as the living embodiment of an amazing technological achievement. We’ll hear a lot more about that trip in the coming years as we approach the 50th anniversary of the first lunar landing.

The story will be told of the U.S. responding to the Sputnik satellite and the fear that gripped many when Yuri Gagaran became the first human to orbit the earth. Our nation caught up when John Glenn took three trips around the earth in Freedom 7. After that, stunning breakthroughs became routine until the Apollo 11 mission finally put two men on the moon.

As the narrative unfolds, however, we’re not likely to hear much about Apollo 1. And, it’s a story that should be told as a reminder that great accomplishments come with great risks and a high cost.

On January 27, 1967, Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee climbed into the Command Module for a launch rehearsal. Grissom was one of the original seven Mercury astronauts and had been into space on a pair of earlier missions. White had become the first American to walk in space on the Gemini 4 mission in 1965. Chaffee was looking forward to his first flight after years of training.

Tragically, a fire broke out in the Command Module on that day and there was no way to release the hatch from the inside. The three men suffered a horrific death and images of the charred Command Module shook the nation. All three men left behind a wife and young children.

Viewed from the perspective of the 21st century, perhaps the most amazing thing about the story is how quickly the space agency regrouped and put men into orbit again. In today’s world, politicians and bureaucrats might have shut the program down completely.

Back then, there were Congressional hearings, but unmanned test flights continued. It took just 20 months before Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele, and Walter Cunningham flew a redesigned Command Module into space on Apollo 7. The courage displayed by those three men was an essential part of the successful race to the moon. Throughout the flight, there was tension between the crew and ground controllers, perhaps a natural result of knowing what had happened to their friends and colleagues on Apollo 1.

After that, events moved quickly. In December 1968 Apollo 8 orbited the moon. In March, Apollo 9 flew the Lunar Module for the first time. Apollo 10 flew to within just a few miles of the lunar surface in May of 1969 and Apollo 11 made history in July.

Today, private companies are leading the return to space. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is spending a billion dollars a year to fund Blue Origin with hopes of building a colony on the lunar surface. His dreams of conquering space were inspired by watching Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon. For all of us who remember, it was a magical moment.

But we should never forget the price paid by Grissom, White, Chaffee, and their families to create that magic. They made it possible for Armstrong and Aldrin to step into history.

While the nation’s political elites obsess over daily controversies of official Washington, a far more significant development is taking place on television screens across America. After years of steady growth, the number of subscribers to streaming video services like Netflix has topped the number of cable subscribers.

ComScore reports that 51 million households now receive their television programming through what the industry calls Over-The-Top (OTT) television. They watch an average of 49 hours of streaming content per month. About a third of these households have dropped cable and satellite programming completely. Looking ahead, the streaming services are expected to continue growing rapidly while the cable and satellite numbers decline.

Netflix is the biggest driver of this transition. Fully 74% of households that stream video watch Netflix. The content giant accounts for 40% of all OTT viewing and nobody else is even close.
Those who mistakenly believe that change is led by political decisions made in Washington are likely to dismiss this as little more than a curiosity. Who cares whether people watch “Stranger Things” or “The 100” on Netflix instead of watching some other show on a cable network? In reality, though, the way that people consume entertainment and information has massive political implications.

In the 1970s, 94% of Americans watched one of only three national television networks. When the President of the United States gave an Oval Office address, all other programming was either cancelled or delayed. If you turned on the TV, you had to watch the president. In such a world, presidential speeches earned massive ratings (over half the country tuned in). But as soon as cable networks like ESPN, HBO, and others gave people a choice, ratings for presidential speeches declined dramatically. Today, when the president gives a speech, only the president’s base supporters and political junkies are likely to tune in. New entertainment options made the president’s bully pulpit far less powerful.

The ultimate political implications of the Netflix Revolution could be even more significant. While cable offered more choices, the timing of when to watch any given show was still controlled by network executives. Millions of people still watched the same show at the same time.

In contrast, OTT viewing schedules are entirely in consumer hands and everybody’s schedule is different. People watch what they want, when they want, and on whatever device they have handy. Among other things, this has created the phenomenon known as binge watching. Many fans watch entire seasons of their favorite show in one sitting. Some observers believe that releasing full seasons at one time has already created a compelling new form of storytelling. Whether that’s true or not, the ComScore report does show that it has increased weekend viewing time among those who use streaming services.

Not everyone, of course, enjoys binge watching. But, it’s great that each of us can decide such things for ourselves. It’s exciting to see broad cultural trends empowering everyday Americans at the expense of traditional institutions and gatekeepers. It’s especially thrilling when you realize that we live in a land where the culture leads and politicians lag behind. Sooner or later, the political system will catch up.

I can’t wait!