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    Sunday, May 12, 2024

    Asked to describe Trump, America's most common replies are 'idiot' and 'incompetent'

    Quinnipiac University's most recent poll mirrors past surveys from the organization in the era of Donald Trump: The president is not very popular.

    The pollsters found that only 36 percent of respondents view Trump's job performance positively, just above the low in Quinnipiac's polling. Those figures have been lower than the running average of approval polling - Trump's at 42 percent approval on average - but the general trend has been in line with other pollsters, in that Trump is unusually unpopular.

    In this most recent survey, though, Quinnipiac included a less-common question than approval: If you had to describe Trump in one word, what would you say? The results were not generally complimentary.

    The most common responses, in order: 1. idiot, 39 times 2. incompetent, 31 times 3. liar, 30 times 4. leader, 25 times 5. unqualified, 25 times 6. president, 22 times 7. strong, 21 times 8. businessman, 18 times 9. ignorant, 16 times 10. egotistical, 15 times

    It is good that we only did the top 10, since the 11th most-common word is not suitable for a family newspaper. It rhymes with "mass soul." And actually, it's only tied for 11th . . . with "stupid."

    That "incompetent" and "liar" rank so high shouldn't come as a surprise. After all, the poll also found that 61 percent of respondents think that Trump is not honest and, again, 58 percent disapprove of the job that he's doing.

    He does slightly better when people are asked to evaluate if he has good leadership skills or not. Fifty-six percent of respondents said he doesn't, but 84 percent of Republicans said he does. They probably make up most of those 25 uses of "leader." A majority of respondents - 62 percent - said that Trump is a strong person, which explains why "strong" ranks so high.

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