Has Donald Trump bitten off more than he can chew in the first three weeks of his second presidency? New numbers from a national survey conducted by YouGov for The Economist demonstrate that the answer to that question is yes.
The newish president has many tough fights ahead of him, but he hasn’t done anything to accumulate political capital for the struggles ahead. In fact, there has been a significant decline in his approval rating since he returned to the White House.
At the beginning of his second interrupted term, there were more Americans who approved of his performance than disapproved. Now there are as many who disapprove as approve of his performance. If his job rating gets much lower, congressional Republicans will have hell to pay in 2026 and suffer damage comparable to the big hit they took when the GOP lost control of the House of Representatives in 2018 after the first two years of Trump’s first term.
Now, there are almost as many Americans who dislike Trump personally as who like him which is a decline in his popularity from when he took the oath of office for a second time. The drop in his personal ratings have been most significant among people under 30 who find his culture war particularly repugnant and wonder why he hasn’t addressed high prices as he promised during the campaign.
Public assessment of the president indicates that he hasn’t moved beyond his narrow popular vote victory to extend a hand to millions of Americans who didn’t vote for him last year. In fact, he already has lost some of the support that he had before he returned.
Why are Trump’s ratings so low, so early in his new presidency and how low can he go?
Trump hasn’t improved his standing because he hasn’t done anything about the problem that most Americans worry about most. He’s failed to address inflationary prices, but he has found time to rename the Gulf of Mexico, make the world safe for plastic straws and appoint himself chairman of the Kennedy Center of Performing Arts. Trump fiddles while the high cost of living burns through the wallets and pocketbooks of consumers.
He’s also picking fights the public doesn’t want to have. His goal to cut government spending meets with general support but Americans like the institutions he wants to demolish. Trump has made it clear that he wants to dispose of the Department of Education, but by a two-to-one margin, Americans oppose eliminating the agency. The public by more than a four-to-one margin is against the abolition of the Occupational Safety and Health Agency and the IRS’s free tax online assistance program.
Then, there’s Trump’s utter disregard for the system of checks and balances between the executive, legislative and judicial branches in the federal government that has served the nation well for more than two centuries. Recently, Vice President JD Vance posted on X, “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.” He’s right in the technical sense because the president does have a right to exercise his “legitimate” constitutional powers but his take misses the big picture.
The veep has a law degree from Yale University and one of the first things he should have learned in his constitutional law class there is presidential prerogative doesn’t mean Trump can do anything he pleases, like cutting spending already authorized by Congress or abolishing the Department of Education by executive fiat.
Maybe Vance was absent the day his professors explained the Supreme Court’s ruling in Marbury v. Madison that federal courts have the right and authority to review and reverse actions of the president and Congress if they violate the Constitution. I didn’t attend an elite Ivy League law school, but I have stayed in enough Holiday Inn Express rooms to know there must be some restraints on presidential power to preserve democracy and avoid dictatorship.
What does all this mean for the Democrats? His failure to reach out is a golden opportunity for Democrats to enlarge their coalition. But to take advantage of Trump’s mistakes, my party needs to change its ways. Less than half of the Democrats in the survey approved of the Democratic leadership handling of Trump’s escapades.
Democratic media consultant and digital creator, Will Robinson, a recent guest on my Deadline D.C. with Brad Bannon podcast has called for the national Democratic leadership to find fresh and creative ways to access the public. Washington press conferences on CNN are fine, but they don’t reach the millions of people who don’t view news shows or even watch TV.
Robinson believes the GOP has done a much better job than Democrats in the use of untraditional internet outlets that appeal to the public, especially young people. The internet has decentralized information sources to an incredible extent. Perhaps a truth squad of young Democratic activists and officials could extend a welcoming hand to the public on their own terms and in their own communities.
Trump’s enormous appetite for carnage and destruction may prove to be his own undoing. But the nation is in crisis, and we can’t stand by idly and hope that he pushes the public too far. Democrats must stand tall, think big and act boldly to satisfy the public demand for fundamental change in the political and economic systems. Otherwise, some people will accept Trump’s extremist actions by default.
Brad Bannon is a national Democratic strategist and CEO of Bannon Communications Research which polls for Democrats, labor unions and progressive issue groups. He hosts the popular progressive podcast on power, politics and policy, Deadline D.C. with Brad Bannon.
