Poll:

Most young Americans see Trump as illegitimate president

Rasa - A majority of young Americans, particularly minorities, view Donald Trump as an illegitimate president and disapprove of how Trump is handling his job as president, a new poll suggests.

News ID: 428294

Date: 20 March 2017 - 22:04

RNA - Some 57 percent of young adults age 18-30 see Trump's presidency as illegitimate, including 74 percent of blacks, 71 percent of Hispanics and 60 percent of Asians, according to the GenForward poll.

GenForward is a poll of adults age 18 to 30 conducted by the Black Youth Project at the University of Chicago with The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

The survey found that a slight majority of young whites, 53 percent, consider Trump's presidency as illegitimate, but even among that group 65 percent disapprove of the job he's doing, according to the survey.

Large majorities of African Americans, Hispanics and Asians also disapprove of the job Trump is doing, according to the survey.

According to a Gallup poll released Sunday, Trump’s approval rating among Americans has hit a new low, dropping to 37 percent.

Trump's legitimacy as president was questioned in January by black Congressman John Lewis, a Democrat from Georgia, and a civil rights icon.

"I don't see this [Republican] President-elect as a legitimate president," Lewis said on January 13 during an interview on NBC News.

Lewis, who was severely beaten by police in Selma, Alabama, in 1965 during a civil rights protest, did not attend Trump’s inauguration on January 20.

Trump was repeatedly criticized during his presidential campaign for his inflammatory language against Muslims, immigrants, women and other groups.

During his election campaign, Trump characterized Mexican migrants living in the US as murderers and rapists and pledged to build a wall on the US-Mexico border. He also called for "a complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States."

Trump issued a revised executive order earlier this month that bans the entry of citizens from six Muslim-majority nations, after a federal judge in Seattle, Washington, halted his original travel ban.

It's extraordinary rhetoric for the president of a country where by approximately 2020, half of children in the US will be non-white, according to projections by the US Census Bureau. European Americans are expected to be a minority by 2044.

Critics say that Trump’s election has emboldened far-right groups and white supremacists and increased levels of xenophobia across the country.

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