Most Young Americans See Trump as an Illegitimate President

[Frodo]

Chicago Tribune

[Ronnie]

One thing I don't understand is why the "Disapprove" number for all adults in the second graph is smaller than all the others.  Is it a typo?

[pbrower2a]

One thing I don't understand is why the "Disapprove" number for all adults in the second graph is smaller than all the others.  Is it a typo?

It is lower than the numbers for all groups of non-white but higher than that for whites.

[Rjjr77]

One thing I don't understand is why the "Disapprove" number for all adults in the second graph is smaller than all the others.  Is it a typo?

It is lower than the numbers for all groups of non-white but higher than that for whites.

No its not.

[Associate Justice PiT]

One thing I don't understand is why the "Disapprove" number for all adults in the second graph is smaller than all the others.  Is it a typo?

It is lower than the numbers for all groups of non-white but higher than that for whites.

     That is true for Approve, but not Disapprove. I would note that Approve + Disapprove only adds up to 84%.

[Virginiá]

I still don't understand what it means to claim that a president is "illegitimate."

Without defining the word before asking it, there is no way to know what that poll result truly means, but I'd venture a guess that most people think that Trump didn't "win" fairly (or in other words, he cheated, whether it was literally changing votes or just getting Russians to hack his political opponents and release embarrassing information)

[OneJ]

Hmmmm...I guess many people think Trump is "illegitimate" is:

1.) He didn't win the popular vote. Even if you do argue that he won by the Electoral College, many Americans are still angry that he won the way he did.

2.) Russia sorta helped him.

3.) Himself. The way he acts is comparable to that of a toddler. His past actions are just simply dirty.

I mean can you really blame the American people for thinking that he's "illegitimate" even when some of us don't necessarily agree? I can't (I actually agree with them).

[Associate Justice PiT]

I still don't understand what it means to claim that a president is "illegitimate."

Without defining the word before asking it, there is no way to know what that poll result truly means, but I'd venture a guess that most people think that Trump didn't "win" fairly (or in other words, he cheated, whether it was literally changing votes or just getting Russians to hack his political opponents and release embarrassing information)

     Those are reasonable guesses, but like the poll that showed most Dems favoring impeachment and Republicans embracing birtherism, I suspect lots of people are using this as a shorthand for disapproval.

[Reaganfan]

Illegitimate has a definition of:
not authorized by the law; not in accordance with accepted standards or rules.

I don't see how Donald Trump "broke" any rules. Standards, definitely.

He won the nomination, fairly and decisively, and then did the convention, all three debates, the Al Smith Dinner...everything typical nominees do.

Then he won most battleground states except three (Colorado, Nevada and Virginia). He won more electoral votes than Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush.

That's not illegitimate.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

I still don't understand what it means to claim that a president is "illegitimate."

Since he was, as far as we know, legally elected, and is presumably neither a bastard (although he never has produced his birth certificate) nor a plant (although I'd want x-rays of his skull to be sure he has a brain), the appropriate definition would appear to be this one:

"Not authorized by good usage; not genuine; spurious."

In other words, Trumpy is an illegitimate president because he is doing the job of *being president* poorly, if at all. Much as some people (including myself) have been saying.

You can stick a narccistic con-artist villain in the White House, but that doesn't actually make him a good, or even passable, President.

[7,052,770]

He's not illegitimate in the legal sense, since he won the nomination and the presidency according to preset rules, but he still has some "soft" illegitimacy in that America had a clear, indisputable preference for Hillary to be president (#neverforget the 3 million vote margin) that choice was violated by the system.

You can't expect the 65,853,516 Hillary voters and millions more dummies who wanted her to win but for whatever reason couldn't bring themselves to vote for her to just forget the fact that they were the pulse of America.

[Frodo]

In the eyes of the law he is a legitimate President -at least for now.  In the court of public opinion, not so much.  As most people have already mentioned, he lost the popular vote, was assisted by the Russians and Wikileaks (an undeniably anti-American organization bent on undermining the United States), and by FBI Director Jim Comey's 11th-hour intervention.  

And his personal behavior since his inauguration, as well as his efforts to undermine the free press, our courts, and besmirch government institutions like the Congressional Budget Office has done nothing to lift the stench of illegitimacy that follows him wherever he goes.  It feeds into a general sense that he is the man-child he so often accused Marco Rubio of being.

[I Won - Get Over It]

One thing I don't understand is why the "Disapprove" number for all adults in the second graph is smaller than all the others.  Is it a typo?

Yes. Disapproval among whites is 55%, not 65%.

http://genforwardsurvey.com/assets/uploads/2017/03/March-Report__Trump-memo-Final-Draft.pdf

[Green Line]

The Chicago Tribune is basically an illegitimate newspaper at this point.

[angus]

I still don't understand what it means to claim that a president is "illegitimate."

It means whatever you want it to mean.  Eye of the beholder.

I can think of two general analogies:  the Borgia popes and the antipopes.  The leaders of the House of Borgia were suspected of adultery, incest, simony, theft, bribery, and murder, among other things, and they clawed their way to the top using trickery and broken promises.  Antipopes simply oppose the legitimately elected pope and made claims to be actual pope.  Trump is more like the Borgia popes than the antipopes, I think, in the sense that no one has decided to oppose his presidency and declare himself or herself the actual president, and in the sense that Trump engaged in a general sort of tomfoolery to get himself elected, and again to pursue a legislative agenda.

I wouldn't call him illegitimate, but then I wouldn't call the Borgia Popes illegitimate either.  Powerhungry, perhaps, and unethical, but not illegitimate.  Still, I can understand that logic that might lead others to conclude that a certain illegitimacy obscures their moral authority.

[Hermit For Peace]

Bottom line is it doesn't really matter what we call Trump; we are stuck with him (for now.)

He's an embarrassment.

[All Along The Watchtower]

I still don't understand what it means to claim that a president is "illegitimate."

Considering that the current President was politically rewarded in spite of his nakedly crass and racist trolling about the previous (black, Democratic) President's birth certificate and college transcripts (or let's be real, because of said trolling - at least, initially in the development of his recent mass media-based self-promoting political hucksterism, which quickly turned into a successful career as a politician (though what's the difference these days?)),  I think it's understandable - though rather petty and ultimately counterproductive - for a lot of Democrats/Obama supporters to feel this way toward Trump.

(This isn't taking into account the griping about the Electoral College as well as the Vast Right-Wing FBI/Russia/WikiLeaks Conspiracy that supposedly installed Donald Trump as President.)

[Rjjr77]

The Chicago Tribune is basically an illegitimate newspaper at this point.

Gen forward is a ridiculous project and a waste of the university of Chicago's reputation

[Frodo]

The Chicago Tribune is basically an illegitimate newspaper at this point.

Oh? Why do you say that? 

[hopper]

I don't get how young people under the age of 30 think Trump is an illegitimate President. He won the Electoral College.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Considering that the current President was politically rewarded in spite of his nakedly crass and racist trolling about the previous (black, Democratic) President's birth certificate and college transcripts (or let's be real, because of said trolling - at least, initially in the development of his recent mass media-based self-promoting political hucksterism, which quickly turned into a successful career as a politician (though what's the difference these days?)),  I think it's understandable - though rather petty and ultimately counterproductive - for a lot of Democrats/Obama supporters to feel this way toward Trump.

This is not a substantive comment, and I'm verbose enough to run the risk of inclusion in the Irony Ore Mine, but this is one hell of a sentence. I'm not sure that I could diagram it if I tried.

Fair enough. I am indeed, often too verbose. As far as the lack of substance to my comment, I don't think that debating Trump's "illegitimacy" as a President will produce anything substantive regardless, and I suspect you agree there.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

The best way to "delegitimize" Trump is to try living your life as much as you can and ignore what he or his thugs say, and do what's in your power to try and nullify his actions.  Volunteer for Meals on Wheels, donate to Planned Parenthood, smoke weed, punch a Nazi, support the ACLU... things that people have long been doing for years, really.  Do and support everything that Trump and his administration hates and help the people fighting back.

[The_Doctor]

The president is a national embarrassment and a noted grifter to boot. In that sense he's illegitimate. Some of his supporters are even bigger national embarrassments.

Constitutionally he's a legitimate president.