36 United States The EconomistNovember 16th 2019
21aca, his rating fell—dropping to 37% in
September 2017 when two Republican sen-
ators made a last-ditch repeal effort.
Prominent Republican opposition to
these efforts may have helped drive Mr
Trump’s ratings down. John McCain, a late
Republican senator from Arizona, voted
against the bill. This may have allowed Re-
publicans who liked Mr McCain to register
their disapproval, just as support for im-
peachment among Democrats rose once it
won the backing of Nancy Pelosi, the
House Speaker.
Two months after the last efforts to re-
peal the acafailed, Congress passed, and
Mr Trump ultimately signed, a tax-cut
package that would have been favoured by
any Republican president. His approval
rating immediately improved. This could
be taken as a sign that Americans approved
of the tax cuts. But polls from the month
before the law’s passage suggest it was un-
popular. News coverage was intense in this
period but as it subsequently lessened, Mr
Trump’s approval rating increased.
By early 2018, Congress had grown less
ambitious, and Mr Trump’s approval rating
recovered. It next dipped during the 2018-19
government shutdown, for which he
claimed responsibility, claiming that he
was “proud to shut down the government
for border security.” When the government
reopened, his rating recovered.
This pattern should discomfit Demo-
crats and traditional Republicans alike.
Democrats have long hoped that Mr Trump
would pay a price for his norm-breaking
behaviour. But sticking thumbs in the eyes
of allies while praising dictators, saying
there were “very fine people on both sides”
of a march where white supremacists faced
off against protesters, spending taxpayer
funds at his hotels and separating families
at the border all appear to have had little ef-
fect on his overall approval rating. The pub-
lic appears to have processed them as parti-
san battles, and reacted accordingly.
Yet orthodox Republican policies, such
as cutting taxes and health care, could justas well dent the president’s approval rating.
As a candidate, Mr Trump happily trampled
on Republican orthodoxies, promising to
protect voters’ Medicare and Social Securi-
ty while condemning the Iraq War—and
voters loved him for it. Since the midterms,
Republicans have passed no ambitious or-
thodox legislation, perhaps because Con-
gress is divided (though not all divided
Congresses have been as unproductive as
the 116th), or perhaps because Republicans
have realised that they are better off simply
letting Mr Trump be his norm-breaking
self, and earning credit with the White
House and the conservative base by public-
ly defending him.
Of course, Mr Trump is not the only one
whom impeachment puts under a micro-
scope. As one Republican strategist noted,
impeachment “puts the prosecutors on
trial every bit as much as the president.” In
1998, as Congressional Republicans pre-
pared to impeach Bill Clinton, voters went
to the polls. House Republicans lost five
seats—the first time since 1934 that the
party controlling the White House added
seats in a midterm—while Democrats won
unlikely governors’ races, such as Alabama
and South Carolina. Republicans were seen
as zealous. The inquiry into Mr Trump may
be more justified—focusing as it does on
the subversion of American policy, rather
than on lying under oath about an extra-
marital affair—but Democrats from swing
states and districts face a similar risk.
Since September 24th, when Ms Pelosi
announced the start of an impeachment
inquiry, Mr Trump’s approval rating has de-
clined by just two points. If the House votes
to impeach Mr Trump, the Senate is unlike-
ly to remove him, whatever emerges over
the next two weeks. Majorities of voters in
swing states oppose removal. Unless a sig-
nificant share of elected Republicans break
with the president, that is unlikely to
change. And the more partisan the hear-
ings appear, the likelier voters are to pro-
cess them as only partisan, and back their
own team. 7Keep your government hands off my ObamacareSources: National polling;The Economist *According to an averaging technique called Bayesian change-point analysisUnited States, net job approval* of Donald Trump, among all voters, percentage points-30-20-100102017 18 19Donald Trump inauguratedHouse passes AHCA
James Comey fired
Trump Tower
meeting storyTax cut becomes law;
end of major Republican
legislative effortsDemocrats announce
impeachment inquiryGovernment
shutdownHouse Republicans unveil
Obamacare repeal (AHCA)A
s a teenagerworking at a Pennsylva-
nia theme park Keith broke the law. For
selling entry tickets on the side he was con-
victed of a third-degree misdemeanour.
That record has dogged him since. Prospec-
tive employers shun him, he says. Keith
has young children, and some schools
block those with a record from being chap-
erones on trips or coaching a sports team.
Before the internet and digitised data-
bases, Keith could have hoped that his in-
fraction would be forgotten once fines
were paid or time served. No longer. Firms
like InstantCheckMate, Truthfinder or Sen-
tryLink can dredge up records quickly.
State files are easily searched online at no
cost. Nine in ten employers, four in five
landlords, as well as mortgage-lenders,
universities and schools run such checks.
A bipartisan movement is under way in
states to do something about this. Last year
lawmakers from both parties in Pennsylva-
nia—nudged by an odd-bedfellows co-
alition of left-leaning activists, unions,
chambers of commerce, Koch Industries
and others—voted overwhelmingly to be
the first state to do so. In June it started
sealing over 30m records, and will soon be
finished. That spurred others. In March
Utah’s governor signed legislation to clean
old records automatically, probably 30,000
cases yearly, amid hopes of boosting the
supply of local labour. California enacted
an automatic clean-slate law last month.
That law does nothing to wipe old records,
but at least allows for future expungement,CHICAGO
Why states are rushing to expunge
tens of millions of old criminal recordsSealing criminal recordsClean slates, rich
states