You've probably seen Donald Trump's precipitous fall in four recent polls:
But did you know that the all-time record holders for the poorest early approval ratings are Donald Trump and . . . Donald Trump? It's true:
Right now Trump is doing slightly better than he did during his first term, but I doubt that will last for long.
Wow. Three posts in a 12-hour period. Either you're feeling better or you're going out in a blaze of glory. 😉
It is comforting to see him back.
He's proving to be a feckless puppet of numerous people and or groups. The video of him seeming to be Musks subordinate is pretty damning. And its funny considering the fact that he likes to think of himself as the top dog. What a chump!
The Art of the Deal — he sold shares in his Presidency in return for support during the campaign. Musk invested a quarter-billion and gets to destroy the agencies that were investigating and/or regulating his businesses, with ‘government efficiency’ as cover. RFK, Jr. withdrew his candidacy and backed TFM and got HHS, so he can inflict his loony, unscientific woo on the entire nation. Putin continued his undercover operations, and gets an ally for his imperialist war against Ukraine. It’s likely Trump will drop the sanctions on Russia whether or not a cease-fire is achieved.
+1
You think that's going to stop him, do you?
If it goes way down, then the congress may do something. But it really has to be way down.
Admittedly, it would be somewhat amusing even if disappointing, but also unsurprising, were the GOP only move to protect its re-election chances rather than the Constitution for democracy's sake.
Have you not watched the cabinet confirmations? The GOP yeses were all driven by fear and threats of being primaried by Musk’s wallet.
Cabinet confirmations are a completely different subject from gutting of popular programs or actions hitting people's pocket books.
Cabinet things are what Political Nerds worry about and most normal humans don't (this is not to say they should not but they don't).
Tarriffs and threats of tarriffs contributing to an already re-accelerating inflation plus service impacts - fun if Musk destabilises the social security payments - or Postal interruptions for the rural / elderly for whom physical mail remains significant etc.
These will move fear
Meh. Polls won't make a difference, but the stock market will.
Interesting comment.
You really think that Congesscritters don't look at polls?
I didn't say they don't look at polls. I'm sure they look at lots of things, particularly the checks sent in by their donors.
I said that polls won't make a difference.
A lot of House members have such safe, gerrymandered seats that a ham sandwich with an R next to its name will be almost automatically reelected, regardless of how popular Trump might be. Senators, though, don't have that luxury. If the Muskrump brand is completely in the shitter in two years, that's going to be a problem for a number of them.
I do think congress critters look at polls, especially the ones that aren’t in safe districts or states. I even think well-developed countries without elections or with heavily biased elections (Hong Kong, Hungary) look at polls too, just to make sure that whatever they’re doing isn’t too opposed by regular people, so as to not incite riots and civil war within their borders.
But I also think polls matter very little in failed countries run by autocracies. There isn’t much point in worrying about polls if you’ll never have a free and fair election again and your goal is to strip the country of all its wealth.
We’ll see which paragraph applies to the US in 2026 and 28.
Polls, no. But this kind of thing will:
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/21/politics/rich-mccormick-georgia-trump/index.html
This stuff is like a snowball rolling downhill.
Trump is highly motivated by feeling acclaimed - so plunging polls will disturb him.
And since he is purely transactional (outside maybe a few core obsessions) he is likely to declare victory (while beating a losing retreat) where there is massive popularity hits.
And as Yehouda says, going way down will cause even a real segment of the Repubicans (out of fear of MidTerms Massacre) to turn on him.
While all of this is quite disturbing - this is indeed far worse than I expected (and I had rather low expectations) on the flip side sheer idiocy like Muskian Dogeism blowing up Farmer Payments is really one nasty own-goal politically (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/02/20/farmers-congress-usda-funding-freeze/?itid=sr_1_0e150754-7b5c-4ab3-9afc-24aef9a87027)
Postal Service take over another potential own-goal.
Musk model derived from being CEO of companies in which he has controlled shareholding is not one that is wise for an unappointed ad-hoc political department - and I noted Bannon is attacking him as not even a real American
- yes it is Bannon, but in the present circumstances use any ally of convenience possible.
"Trump is highly motivated by feeling acclaimed - so plunging polls will disturb him."
Trump has never been popular, and his unfavorable/favorable ratio now is about the same as it was for most of his 1st term, and much better than it was at several stages (Charlottesville, January 6, etc.). It hasn't gotten to him so far.
Moreover, Trump is innumerate, and surrounded by toadies. There is no indication that accurate polling data ever gets to him, and even if it did, there's no reason to think he could or would understand it.
Republican voters getting upset with him might accelerate lame duckism, as R politicians with an eye on the future will have to at some point focus on a future without Trump. But 538's poll aggregator has Trump's approval up ~5 points among republicants since inauguration, so that effect doesn't appear to be setting in soon.
Unless Trump dies, he’s never leaving office. I mean, sure maybe he doesn’t run again… but he’ll be sure to have full control over whomever does run, like Putin did when he graciously respected his country’s laws prohibiting another term and allowed his handpicked successor to run, then had that law changed so he could return to power in the next election. Something similar (but probably stupider, like it’ll be one of his idiot children as the placeholder) will happen here too.
The constitution (22nd amendment) prohibit him from being president, bu tnot from becoming presiden in other way.
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt22-1/ALDE_00001008/
So he can either run as VP with a toady that resign after winning the elections, or run two toadies, toady A resign, Toady B appoint Trump VP and resign, or (or Trump becomes speaker of the house and both toadies resign. The latter is 100% compatible with the constitution (see the analysis in the link).
The only problem is to ensure the toady wins. With DOJ and FBI thorughly corrupted by 2028, and other agencies presumably too, that should be easy. Just harass away or kill any serious democracic candidate.
What this all may set the stage for is a each administration completely cleaning house of the lot before them. Very destabilizing, but maybe that's the feature?
You think that's going to stop him, do you?
Polls alone won't stop him, no. But sufficiently awful numbers will make more (not all, probably not even most, but more) Republicans willing to openly criticize him and/or oppose him in Congress. Mind you I think his numbers have to go a lot lower for this dynamic to have any substantive effect. But what he and Elmo are trying to do is truly radical, and is ruffling more and more feathers even in red states. And if we add to this a return to problematic inflation (given what they're planned, I think it's entirely possible it might exceed what we experienced in 2022) followed by a bad recession...all bets are off.
These things tend to happen very gradually...then all of a sudden.
Is it possible that there were Democrats and others who did not vote for him that were hopeful it would not be so bad, and our now are shocked at the carnage he is bringing to the Country and the world? Or is it the realization that he will not bring down the price of anything they want to buy, and will likely in the very near future cost them far more?
Most people don't give a shit about what is happening in Washington or Europe until it impacts them directly. When the car or computer or building products or gas cost more they will care. When their tax refund is late, or the National Parks have reduced hours, or their Medicare/Medicaid is cut they will care. When there are even greater delays at the airport because of FAA/TSA personnel cuts, they will care. When a hurricane/tornado slams into them with little warning because of the cuts at NOAA, they will care.
It is possible. Even probable. Americans have avoided a lot of massively destructive calamity over the last 100 years, and so they assume good governance just happens somehow. They’ll learn what it’s like to have everything collapse, and a bunch of “I can’t be bothered to vote for her” voters will privately have regrets. (They’ll never publicly admit it - just like how nobody admitted to voting for nazis in Germany pre WWII.) Won’t matter though, because free and fair elections may never happen again, and even if they do, the rebuilding from the destruction will take several generations.
(Nobody in Europe who suffered through WWII directly ever saw their country rebuilt exactly the same as it was again. It took like 50 years to rebuild - 70 in Eastenr Europe - to a “First World” living standard, and many who were over 20 during WWII never lived to enjoy the restoration of their homeland.)
No excuse this time America.
You watched this charlatan for 10 years. You knew exactly what you were voting for so dont cry when YOUR gov goodie gets cut
“It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.”
It took like 50 years to rebuild - 70 in Eastenr Europe - to a “First World” living standard
You really think Germany didn't have a first world living standard until the mid 1990s?
West Germany was substantially rebuilt by the early 1950s, and had surpassed pre war living standards by a wide margin by the end of that decade.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirtschaftswunder#:
Imagine the polls once the unemployment numbers come out!
No problem for the GOP, as s those numbers will come from the 2.0 Ofc of Unemployment
Trump hasn’t (yet) done a fascist salute in public… I’ll wait for that.
My thought exactly, after seeing that Bannon did one last night. Just a matter of time, I'd bet.
He does do that weird raised fist thing. Does that count?
"Trump hasn’t (yet) done a fascist salute in public… I’ll wait for that."
Maybe you're making a joke, but in the off chance that you are not:
After a decade of this, we really, really need to stop thinking that the argument "But Trump did a bad word thing!" is going to stop him. It hasn't. And it won't.
🎯
After a decade of this, we really, really need to stop thinking that the argument "But Trump did a bad word thing!" is going to stop him. It hasn't.
No one thing will stop him. But the effect is cumulative. Most Americans who went to the polls last November voted for someone other than Donald Trump, and moreover Republicans in Congress and at the state level can read polls. And if there is one constant we see in dictators of all kinds, it is hubris.
He's not superhuman. He's an aging, increasingly cognitively impaired, monstrously insecure bully almost completely bereft of policy knowledge. And as powerful as he may seem, he can't control the macro economy—nor lots of other things. And if people would just observe carefully, the losses (especially in the judiciary) are steadily mounting. And open criticism is becoming more common, even among Republicans.
+1
The same pols that predicted Hillary & Kamala would win?
With no relelection to worry about, and a gutless congress, does he even care about polls anymore?
He may not care specifically about poll numbers, but what he hates is negative screen time. No matter the subject. Any time he's tied to something negative (food prices, inflation, popularity) he's triggered.
Historically, this meant a spat of childish posts and a series of speaking events (rallies) to hide in the bubble of fawning fans.
Yep. Food prices, inflation and drops in the stock market. Polls won't make a difference. Trump has been underwater since the second year of his first term.
He'll just lie about inflation and food prices and the rubes will believe him. The cognitive dissonance is deafening. But the stock market is a different story. The big money people aren't going to buy his inane excuses - they know when they're losing money - and they're going to start rattling some cages.
agree except remember the stock market only cares about profits, so they'll be fine with any 2.0 fix that skips over healthcare, equality, environment, poor people and immigrants, peaceful transitions. You know that woke stuff.
Yes - he certainly does not care about polling in the same way normal politicians care but he certainly does care about Polls as it shows up as Negative Screen Time on popularity .
Given his chaos is nearly certain to drive a number of developments that populations typically hate (a) disruptions to their goodies (as like farmers payments - oops turns out they get a lot!), or services (like inspections, like air traffic) (b) inflation (tariffs, other disruptions will start reinforcing existing trend).
And equally Congress members even those bluffing right now if facing 2026 will become very nervous as even Safe Seats get at risk in face of inflation and disruption for people at pocket-book levels.
Overall Trump's chaos and following Musk is deeply unwise - for him (deeply stressful for all us normal humans in the world) but it probably is setting him on a path to Not Success by burning through too much political capital all at once - it's like Hitler simultnateously attacking France, Soviet Union and Italy because Mussolini looked at him funny... the initial shock puts people on back feet but then generates a lot more opposition than more careful targeted action and building up your position)
Now I can only hope the Democrats have the good sense to see they need to compromise on the Urban Intellectuals driven agenda to win back some of the rural / semi-rural suburban vote to stop the bleed and show success
“…(Democrats) need to compromise on the Urban Intellectuals driven agenda to win back some of the rural / semi-rural suburban vote…”
Lounsbury Code for:
“…(Democrats) need to be more racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic, and generally suspicious of anybody not solidly Christian. Full stop.” Both parties ageeeing to oppress the same groups of people worked during the entire Jim Crow era, after all.
Semi-rural and suburban voters will come back when their economic circumstances take a turn for the worse. Judging by his actions so far it'll be sooner rather than later. Economics trumps everything else. Culture war issues will take a back seat to inflation and loss of social services. Especially since the culture war issues have very little to do with the average Americans daily life.
The solution to “negative screen time” will be for the FCC, IRS, FTC and other agencies to heavily lean on media companies to not publish negative stories. Hungary already does this under Orban and the EU just tolerates it. The same will happen here.
🎯🎯🎯
Hillary did win the popular vote. And as for 2024, Trump did win… a very small plurality. Guy is not popular whatever he thinks in his head.
No, no polls "Predicted" Kamala would win (nor Hillary) - that first of all is maths illiteracy.
Polls are not Omens and Predictions of the future, that's innumerate misunderstanding of polling as witchcraft - they are probabilities estimations.
The polling showed Kamala, to take the immediate election in a statistical tie with Trump - excepting some oddballs polling was quite clearly showing as many a numerate observer said "a coin flip" with modest chances advantages on Trump due to structure (Silver Bulletin rather nicely summarises).
Polling "leads" within Poll margins of errors are no leads at all, and to read them as real leads is to fundamentally not understand what they are doing.
Maybe I misread them but presidential polls are probably moot now anyway. The 2020 election denial has been throughly vindicated. Mike Pence was a disgrace and like JD, the vetting of all future GOP VP's will include the promise they will never certify a Democratic electoral victory. Toss in that any future “Vote Counting Security” measures, sure to be proposed by red states, will be navigating a red congress and 6-3 supreme court, and I'd say we'll be transitioning from Oligarchy to Autocracy. Be thrilled to be wrong and will apologize right here.
It's already happening:
Top US Election Security Watchdog Forced to Stop Election Security Work
The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has frozen efforts to aid states in securing elections, according to an internal memo viewed by WIRED.
https://www.wired.com/story/cisa-election-security-freeze-memo/
Yes, this is all correct and a tough one for the general public to grasp. Like when the weather forecast says 80% chance of rain and it doesn't rain. This is not evidence of a bad model!
does he even care about polls anymore?
He doesn't, but Republicans who must face the voters again care about polls.
This whole country will have to be treated for PTSD very soon.
By who? The feds will all be terminated.
Some of us need it today. On the surface nothing has changed in my life. But there is this massive foreboding and fear pervading every waking minute that we are watching a resurgence of authoritarianism around the world now being openly supported and even lead by the United States.
I worry that next WW is starting to take shape and we are right in the middle of it - as a bad guy.
Does it come down to Europe against Russia, the US and China? Does China wise up and bail?
Trump is already throwing a tantrum and spewing fibs about his falling poll numbers. The orange clown along with his circus of fools will hopefully trip over their own inflated egos. There will be a surge of anger as people who voted for Trump slowly begin to see that they have been used and played for fools. That anger will be difficult to manage, and the fallout will be painful for our country.
On any given day you can read in the news about some group or other who voted for him and is being hurt by his policies, but still supports him. It's astonishing. The leopards are feasting and people are still voting for the leopards even after their faces have been eaten.
🎯🎯🎯
I think it’s because even though nothing gets better, the GOP excels at the old ruse-
Make them afraid
Give them someone to blame
No solution needed
I can't wait till his no tax on overtime promise turns out to be a lie or worse. I can see him raising the cap from over 40 hours to over 50 or even 60. His supporters are going to learn the hard way what happens when you vote for a pathological liar.
With the move by companies toward a 9/80 system, where employees work 9-hour days with one Friday off every two weeks, that will effectively mean longer non-overtime work hours at least half of the time. That by itself will move the cap with no action needed by the Federales.
Thankfully we only have something like 300-400 million guns lying around, something other advanced democracies that fell into autocracy did not have. So our version of collapse is much more likely to feature lots more bloodshed in the streets.
Proud member of
“The Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party”
It’s not like they’re going to eat my face
Watch out for your brain........................
Protests and poll numbers won’t affect them. They haven’t really started the oppression. Firing federal workers is one small part of the plan. Arrests of dissidents will be next.
Yes. No matter how many times these people shatter the Overton window, we all want to cling to the newly widened one.
My money is still on the GOP quietly passing new “straightened” vote counting security laws making red states redder and swing states . . . Not so swingy
Amusing. I just Googled "trump dropping in polls", and listed on the first page of search results, at number six was this post by Kevin! Number seven was Reuters, haha.
Get well Kevin, we need you!
Google's algorithm knows you well. That is all that means.
Exactly. That's why I've been switching over to DuckDuckGo. The day may come when I don't want to be tracked.
What I haven't figured out is a smart phone that's not running either IOS or Android.
Proviso that I'm no hacker, but some alternatives exist. Most seem to be shoestring operations that don't have more than a handful of users (an article in techlog360 mentions 10 of them), so they're probably not all that smooth and don't have a lot of apps that run on them. Plus I think you have to be willing to take a chance on bricking your phone when you install them.
There's also a privacy-oriented niche Swiss one called Apostrophy OS that you can get pre-installed on a niche phone for now, and that runs by subscription. The maker claims it's going to be OEM-installed on other phones too. But cracking that market is a really tall order and a full range of apps is probably going to be hard to find for the foreseeable future.
For searches, Google claims they do not rank news content based on political or ideological viewpoints. But since so much touches on the political these days, I’m not sure how they can achieve that. For example, does a blog post about Trump polls inherently include "ideological viewpoints"? I guess Google tries to decide case by case. Who knows.
I want to see a breakdown by party affiliation. In the past, even the polls showing more than 50% disapproval of some Trumpian position still had well over 50% support from Republicans. I suspect (fear) the same is true here. Until Trump has less than 50% approval from those, I won't be satisfied.