Irish Examiner/ICMSA survey - Trump gets a cold shoulder

ANY poll held to judge how US President Donald Trump is regarded must have a very short shelf life — consistency has hardly established itself as a watchword of his presidency. 

He seems to change his mind almost as often as he updates his Twitter account, so opinions are transitory.

Despite that volatility, more than half of Irish farmers — 53% — are opposed to the idea of a state visit by Mr Trump. That 63% of farmers support the idea that Taoiseach Leo Varadkar should visit the White House on St Patrick’s Day suggests a Trump-like ambiguity — or a realisation that this visit may impact on trade while the other might not.

Mr Trump’s deeply disrespectful attitude to women has had an influence on the poll, too — 40% of women surveyed for the annual Ploughing Championships Irish Examiner/ICMSA opinion poll were strongly opposed to a visit by Mr Trump. Only 25% of men were strongly opposed. Age was, as it increasingly seems to be on a range of subjects, influential. The sternest opposition to a Trump visit was expressed by those aged between 35 and 44.

Suggestions in the last day or so that Mr Trump might, in view of storms in Texas and Florida, review his position on the Paris climate change accord suggests that if this survey is repeated next year a very different set of results might present themselves. So much so that you might think that

inconsistency is a deliberate Trump policy.