President Trump is a product of our tumultuous times. Case in point: Congressional job approval and mainstream media trust (or lack thereof). Both are in the proverbial basement, hovering near all-time lows.
Trump is clearly taking advantage of this.
As Hedgeye CEO Keith McCullough explains in the video above from The Macro Show this morning:
“If you really look at his strategy. He’s anti-mainstream media and anti-Congress. Do you know what the approval rating is for these two things are? Very, very low. Trump wakes up every day and he effectively enrages these two constituencies. But he’s got a lot of people that don’t like these things more than they don’t like him.”
Consider these stats:
- Congressional Job Approval is just 18.5%... almost 70% of Americans disapprove.
- Mainstream Media Trust: Only 21% of Americans have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in TV news … versus 36% ten years ago.
- America ‘Right Direction or Wrong Track?’: Boding well for Trump, 47% of Americans say the country is on the right track today … that’s almost double the 24% at December 2015 lows.
In light of these numbers, don’t expect the Trump administration bashing of Congress and the media to stop.
There’s some market intel to glean from all this
It’s simple. Leave your politics at the door, McCullough says, and keep measuring and mapping the U.S. economy:
“I’m not saying I love these guys. But I’m not saying I hate these guys either. That’s the most important point. We don’t have to love or hate these people all we have to get is the direction of the U.S. economy right.”
Economic reality drive returns. Not partisan politics.