Trump Has 1,360 Days Left in Office, Americans Are Not Loving the First 100 Days - Horowitz
Rób Horowitz, MINDSETTER™
Trump Has 1,360 Days Left in Office, Americans Are Not Loving the First 100 Days - Horowitz
A highly polarizing politician who evokes strong feelings in both his core supporters and his critics, Mr. Trump has a strong base, but has never enjoyed broad popularity. Still, in what may be the briefest political honeymoon in American history, his job approval has dropped by 8% points from what for him was a high watermark of 49% on inauguration day. Tellingly, more than twice as many Americans (44%) strongly disapprove of his current job performance than strongly approve (21%), according to the Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll.
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The most important factor driving the major decline in President Trump’s job approval is the poor marks he receives on the economy, traditionally a source of public support for him. Only 43% of registered voters approve of the job he is doing on the economy, according to The New York Times/Sienna College poll. Similarly. only 45% of adults are confident that he will make good economic decisions, the Pew Research Center poll finds.
At the heart of the loss of faith in Mr. Trump’s handling of the economy are his sweeping, across-the-board tariff increases, bringing tariffs to levels not seen since the Smoot-Hawley tariffs of the early 1930s, which intensified and extended the Great Depression. Nearly 6-in-10(59%). Americans oppose the administration’s tariff increases, while a little less than 4-in-10 (39%) approve, according to Pew. The overwhelming majority of voters don’t buy Mr. Trump’s false claim that the cost of tariffs is paid by the foreign nations where the products originate; American voters, by and large, recognize that tariffs are a tax on imports and will raise prices. The tariffs themselves, as well as the incompetent and erratic way they have been rolled out and explained, have led to a marked decline in the stock market and a roiling of the bond market, creating financial uncertainty and pessimism for businesses and consumers alike.
Mr. Trump is also upside down on most of the other major issues, with majorities of the American public disapproving of his performance on foreign policy generally and the Ukraine/Russia conflict specifically, and believing that the federal budget cuts are going too far, for instance.
Perhaps more important than any specific issue with the exception of the economy, however, is that Americans view Donald Trump’s overall approach to the presidency in his second term as not in keeping with democratic values, as well as believe that his actions have too often pushed beyond the considerable power granted to the president. Fifty-four percent of Americans have no confidence in Donald Trump using the presidency responsibly, according to a CNN poll. Similarly, “a 54 percent majority said that Mr. Trump was “exceeding the powers available to him, including 16 percent of Republicans and 62 percent of independent voters,” documented The New York Times/Sienna College poll. Along the same lines, 66% of Americans say “chaotic’’ and 59% say “scary” describes Donald Trump’s second term well.
One can see this overall sense of an administration moving dangerously beyond the bounds of its powers playing out in the predominant take of Americans’ on the conflict between President Trump and the judiciary. “Voters side with the judges, as 58% think they are legitimately exercising their power in accordance with the Constitution’s system of checks and balances, while 33% say they are unlawfully interfering with the president’s constitutional authority,” the Fox News Poll report summarizes. More telling, “voters are significantly more concerned, by a 19-point margin, about the president disregarding the judiciary than about the courts overstepping their authority," the Fox News Poll report documents.
This growing sense that the president is unwilling to respect the boundaries of his office is the prime reason that while Americans mainly share Mr. Trump’s goals on immigration, more Americans now disapprove (51%) than approve (47%) of his performance in this area. By a margin of nearly 2 to 1( 56% to 31%) Americans disapprove of his handling of the case involving Kilmar Abrego Garcia, where he is flouting a Supreme Court decision mandating that the administration facilitate his release from the El Salvadorian prison he was mistakenly sent to and return him to the United States. An even larger majority (63%), say a president should not be able to deport legal immigrants who have protested Israel. Additionally, the ugly and un-American sending of hundreds of people-- even if they entered our country illegally-- to a notorious prison camp in El Salvador without due process, as well as reveling in the cruelty of these actions, turns off most Americans.
These poor grades from the American public at the 100-day mark are a clarion call for a course correction. Even if President Trump believes he is doing everything right and the public is simply wrong, these polls send an unmistakable message that if he does not temper his approach, demonstrating more respect for the rule of law and our democratic institutions as well as overhauling his tariff policies to be narrower and strategically smarter, he puts his political power and authority at serious risk.
There is time for President Trump to right the ship. But he is not a politician who has ever engaged in much learning behavior or taken a hard look in the mirror, except to admire his own reflection. On the other hand, he has fierce survival skills with strong political instincts. I am holding out some hope for the sake of the nation that even if he is unwilling to make changes for the right reasons, his strong desire for self-preservation will do the trick.