Nearly a year has passed since Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, and according to a new Washington Post/ABC survey published Sunday, 65 percent of Americans believe he has accomplished very little or nothing at all. Trump can, however, boast of at least one remarkable achievement—"an approval rating demonstrably lower than any previous chief executive at this point in his presidency over seven decades of polling."
"He is the only president dating back to Harry S. Truman whose approval rating at this point in his presidency is net negative—by 22 points," write Dan Balz and Scott Clement of the Washington Post. "The next worst recorded in that time was Bill Clinton, who had a net positive of 11 points by this time in his presidency."
The new survey comes shortly after Trump embarked on a lengthy five-country Asia trip in the midst of soaring tensions between the United States and North Korea.
Trump is also engaged in a massive push to ram a tax plan through Congress. As Common Dreams has reported, most Americans disapprove of the Trump-GOP plan, which would deliver massive tax cuts to the wealthy while further disadvantaging low-income and middle class families through enormous cuts to social programs like Medicare and Medicaid.
According to the Post/ABC survey, Trump is receiving low marks from the American public in a number of major areas, from healthcare to race relations to foreign policy.
"Trump began his presidency with only modest expectations on the part of a public that was divided coming out of last year's contentious election," Balz and Clement note. "Roughly 100 days into his presidency, 42 percent said he had accomplished a great deal or a good amount while in office. Today, that has declined to 35 percent."
