Team sports
by digby
Basically these polling results about Trump's ethical quagmire are depressing. . Reality doesn't matter:
Americans divide evenly on whether the incoming Trump administration is complying with ethics laws. And while a bare majority in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll accepts President-elect Donald Trump’s business ownership plan, three-quarters say he should release his tax returns.
Contrary to his comment that the American public doesn’t care about the issue, four in 10 of those polled say they care “a lot” about Trump releasing his tax records.
See PDF with full results and charts here.
This report is a first look at results of an extensive ABC/Post pre-inaugural poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates. Results on Trump’s handling of the transition, views on his policy proposals and expectations for his presidency will be released Tuesday morning, with results Wednesday morning on President Barack Obama’s final ratings as president.
In terms of ethics, the poll finds Americans are split on whether or not Trump, his family and his advisers are complying with federal ethics laws: Forty-three percent think so, while 44 percent think not.
Partisan and ideological gaps are wide: Seventy-nine percent of Republicans say Trump is complying with ethics laws, dropping to 44 percent among independents and just 16 percent of Democrats. Similarly, it’s 72 percent among strong conservatives, slipping to 56 percent among “somewhat” conservative Americans, then plummeting to 37 percent of moderates and 25 percent of liberals.
These divisions also are evident in another measure: Among Americans who say they wanted Trump to win the presidency -- 36 percent of the public -- a broad 85 percent think he’s in compliance ethically. That drops to just 11 percent of those who wanted Hillary Clinton to win (39 percent of all adults) and a third of those who preferred other candidates, or none of them.
Despite criticism by some ethics officials, 52 percent overall say Trump’s plan to continue owning his businesses while placing them in a trust managed by his sons is sufficient. Forty-two percent instead say he should sell his businesses, peaking at 71 percent of Clinton supporters, vs. just 10 percent of those who favored Trump for the office.
Over half the country thinks it's just fine if Trump runs his business out of the white house and basically sells the presidential seal as his "brand."
And when I think about the fits they threw over Al Gore doing a fundraiser at a Buddhist temple or the horror of Clinton losing money on a land deal years before he even ran for president it gives me a headache.
They do want him to show his tax returns. But obviously, if he does it half the country will say it's all good and that will be that.
He can do what he wants for the time being and his people will march behind him into hell. I don't know what it will take to get them to change course.
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