Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:44 pm
Donald Trump has apparently decided that he is the best thing to happen to the world since golden toilets, to judge by the history of his recent tweets, but he just took a sharp blow to his ego as Gallup reported today that President Obama beat Trump as the most admired man of 2016.
According to Gallup, 22% named Barack Obama as most admired man while 15% named Donald Trump. To make matters worse, Hillary Clinton, whom he often disparaged, is the most admired woman. It can only be salt rubbed into the wound when he is reminded that this is the 9th time Obama has won and the 21st time for Clinton.
Trump, of course, enters the White House as the most unpopular President-elect in history.
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Trump reacted violently to Obama’s claim that he could have won a third term, but this latest news doesn’t do anything for Trump’s argument. Given all the facts, Obama probably would have won.
It is true, as Gallup says, incumbents usually win, that “in the 70 times Gallup has asked the question, the president has won 58 times,” but this is a president who has only gotten more popular as his second term nears its end despite all the dirt the GOP could throw at him for eight years.
Trump’s win in 2016 was not a rejection of Barack Obama, but rather the result of an absence of Barack Obama.
Perhaps the worst blow of all for Trump is that Democrats like Obama more than Republicans like Trump: “Fifty percent of Democrats named Obama as most admired, compared with 34% of Republicans choosing Trump.”
That’s got to hurt a man who announced the day after Christmas, as though Christ arisen, “The world was gloomy before I won.”
It is true that the Religious Right anointed Trump as their messiah, but there is no messianic fervor to welcome him into the White House.
In the end, Trump wants what he has not earned: respect. President Obama, on the other hand, has earned every ounce of respect he has received, and then some.
Trump has often been the butt of Obama’s jokes. Now he can sit his butt on his golden toilet, smartphone in hand, and do what he does best: whine, while a real president takes the accolades that are his due.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
