Donald Trump Makes Things He Hates More Popular

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs has been busily polling the American public, and their latest survey is about international trade. It’s become surprisingly popular ever since the trade-warrior-in-chief started his anti-trade jihad from the White House:

How about that? Trump’s bellowing seems to have had the opposite effect from what he wanted. Suddenly everyone is a fan of trade. Even Republicans. But before we draw any conclusions from this, here’s another chart:

This is not quite so dramatic, but nonetheless it shows that support for higher immigration levels has gone up from 20 percent to 28 percent since 2016. Throughout the entire post-9/11 period, the number of people who want to decrease immigration has plummeted from 58 percent to 29 percent.

So what’s going on? Do things get more popular the more that Trump bashes them? That’s my working hypothesis so far, but more empirical evidence is needed. I’ll get on that later today.

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PLEASE—BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please do your part and help us reach our $150,000 membership goal by May 31.

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