I guess you take comfort where you can:
Under siege for his management of a deadly pandemic, a cratered U.S. economy, and mass protests across the country, top advisers to President Donald Trump are finding solace in one question: How the hell is he not even more unpopular?
Though poll after poll shows the president in a historically bad position for an incumbent in an election year, inside the White House and on the campaign a feeling of relief has begun setting in that it’s not worse. As they see it, any one of the events of the past few months would have tanked a prior president’s standing. They endured a global pandemic, a historic rise in unemployment, and a sweeping revolt against the criminal justice system in quick succession. And, through it all, many of them feel bruised but politically intact.
“Obviously you would prefer to see Trump winning big in every swing state right now but if you put things into context and consider that we have 40 million Americans unemployed, a deadly virus, and race riots [and] protests unfolding currently, and he’s still within the margin of error in every battleground state, it’s tough to feel like the sky is falling,” said a source close to the White House. “It’s hard to imagine the environment getting tougher for him than it is today, so if I were the Biden campaign, especially as the economy improves, I would be very concerned that the president is still clearly in the game.”
“Our guy screws up everything he touches and is clearly the worst president in American history, and yet he still has a shot! Is this a great country or what?”
Keep in mind that all the other world leaders (except Bolsonaro and Putin) have seen their approval numbers go up as they faced the pandemic and economic crises. And if Trump were an even halfway decent president he could have made some strides during this latest social unrest. But he did the opposite of what any smart president would do in these situations.
The silver lining is that it didn’t hurt him with the cult either, at least not substantially. He literally can do no wrong as far as they are concerned.