Some Good News: Americans Are Rejecting Trumpism

A common refrain in Trumpworld is “promises made, promises kept.” And when it comes to a lot of Donald Trump’s most unpopular ideas, we are in fact seeing promises kept—and that’s the problem!

We just crossed the 100-day mark in Trump’s second term, and there has understandably been a lot of despair witnessing some horrific things, like three children, including a two-year-old and a four-year-old with cancer, being deported to Honduras. All three children are US citizens. In response to an emergency petition to stop the two-year-old from being sent abroad, a Trump-appointed judge said he had a “strong suspicion that the government just deported a US citizen with no meaningful process.” (The Trump administration has claimed the kids were put on the deportation flights at their mothers’ request, which attorneys dispute.) Then there’s the scary stuff happening in the federal government, from Trump disbanding committees focused on aviation security and food safety, to the overall havoc caused by Elon Musk and the DOGE crew.

Autocrats want you to sink into despair and immobility, to see no light at the end of the tunnel. But we can already see some slivers of light and, yes, there is reason for optimism. That’s not to say pushing back against Trump’s extreme agenda is going to be easy—and there’s still quite a long way to midterms, never mind the 2028 election. But it’s heartening to see that a majority of the American people reject what this administration is doing on a host of issues. Trump has squandered any of the postelection honeymoon that presidents typically enjoy. His approval rating, which peaked at 52% a week after inauguration, has dropped to an average of 44%, according to polling compiled by The New York Times. One poll conducted this month found that Trump has the lowest 100-day approval rating of any president in the last 80 years.

Drilling down on issues, it looks even worse. A CNN poll found that 59% of the public says that “Trump’s policies have worsened economic conditions in the country,” with just “12% saying his agenda has helped to bring prices down.” Trump is now underwater on his handling of everything from immigration and border security (51% disapprove) to inflation and cost of living (60% disapprove), per an NBC News poll; it’s not pretty on foreign affairs (55% disapprove) or civil rights (53% disapprove), per a UMass poll. According to a New York Times/Siena poll, “two-thirds of voters, including 75% of independent voters, said that ‘chaotic’ was a good description of the Trump term so far.”

There is some good news in this flurry of polls for Democrats, or anyone who believes in norms and institutions and wants to see the president held accountable. “Half or more of all Americans in the poll say they feel Congress (56%) and courts and judges (50%) are doing too little to check Trump’s power as president,” notes CNN. Speaking of promises made, one of Trump’s most jarring as a presidential candidate was his vow to be a “dictator” on day one. Well, a new PRRI survey finds that 52% of Americans say Trump is a “dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy.”

It’s clear—from polls and protests—that voters want Congress and courts to provide constitutional checks on Trump’s power, rather than lawmakers passively acquiescing to market-rattling trade wars, unlawful deportations, and all the assorted chaos of these past 101 days.

As unpopular as Trump and his agenda are in recent polls, one “special government employee” apparently has him beat. Elon Musk has a 57% disapproval rating, according to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll; his negative rating went up eight points since February as he really got underway in crushing and villainizing federal employees. But Musk has done a lot of stupid stuff, such as shooting off those “five things” emails to federal employees or dancing onstage with a chainsaw at CPAC. And we’ve learned even more about the world’s richest man—for example, as The Wall Street Journal reported, that he manages a “legion” of babies.

But ultimately, the biggest problem for Trump is the slow-motion car accident that is his tariff policy. Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro promised on April 11 that “we’re going to run 90 deals in 90 days. [It’s] possible.” The Trump administration has yet to formally announce a single deal (though it teased this week that one is nearly finalized.) The downstream victims of the trade war are expected to be everyone from consumers to truckers, while shipments from China to West Coast ports are expected to plummet next week, according to CNBC.

And all that saber-rattling that Trump engaged in during the beginning of his administration, all the musing about making Canada the 51st state may have had real consequences. Canada’s Liberal Party won the federal election this week; during his victory speech, party leader and Prime Minister Mark Carney said, speaking French, “We will strengthen our relationship with reliable partners in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere. And if the US doesn’t want to play a pivotal role in the world economy, we will lead, not the Americans.”

Meanwhile, Mexico seems to also be immune to Trump’s charms. “We are going to change the law to prohibit foreign governments from carrying out political and ideological propaganda in our country,” Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum said recently about the Trump administration’s advertisements that have been airing on Mexican television. Yet another American ally—and North American neighbor—alienated.

As Anne Applebaum, a journalist and expert on authoritarianism, put it to NPR last year: “What the autocrats—whether they’re in American politics or in Russian politics or in Chinese politics—what they want is for you to be disengaged.” Indeed, a checked out electorate is much easier to control than an active, engaged one. There is every reason to believe that Trumpism will fail as it’s driven by the whims of one erratic man and carried out by sycophants. Its central governing principle seems to be a kind of low-rent grift.

Trump is emboldened, even as polls suggest he shouldn’t be, and it seems likely he’ll continue overplaying his hand in a second term. The lesson from the few months of Trump’s presidency can be summed up from this line from All the President’s Men about another corrupt Republican president’s administration: “These are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.”