Trump’s Base of Support Is Collapsing

Trump’s Base of Support Is Collapsing

Trump’s Base of Support Is Collapsing

The president never had a proper mandate, but the resistance is no longer a voice of opposition. It now speaks for the great American majority.

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Donald Trump did not win the presidency by the standard measures of democracy.

Fifty-four percent of the Americans who cast ballots on November 8, 2016 favored someone else, and Hillary Clinton won almost 3 million more votes than Trump. Only an antiquated remnant of an 18th-century instinct toward oligarchy—an Electoral College designed by slaveholders and wealthy merchants to maintain the authority of the elites—allowed an ill-prepared and cruelly intended billionaire to enter the White House. But Trump was a lot more popular in November than he is now.

That’s a big deal for the president. And it’s also a big deal for the resistance.

After six months, Trump’s approval rating has fallen to 33 percent in a fresh Quinnipiac University Poll that was released on Wednesday. That’s the lowest Quinnipiac result yet, and it’s not an outlier: The new Gallup tracking poll has the president’s approval at a similarly dismal 36 percent, the lowest three-day average in Trump’s tenure. Even Rasmussen, usually the best for Trump, has him at 38 points—the same as the Real Clear Politics average. Gallup, Quinnipiac, and Rasmussen recently scored his disapproval rating at 60, 61, and 62 percent respectively.

These numbers tell a story that can’t be neglected amid the day-to-day chaos associated with Trump’s administration: His base of support has fallen dramatically since the election. How dramatically? The 45th president’s approval rating is now comparable to Richard Nixon’s when he was being battered by Watergate revelations in the spring and summer of 1973.

What’s the takeaway?

Trump is losing the faith of the American people. He is doing himself immense damage—failing to lead on major issues such as health care, flunking even the most basic foreign-policy tests, and leading his White House into deeper disarray with hirings, firings, and reshuffles of a cabinet that was a mess to begin with.

But the success of the resistance shouldn’t be underestimated when considering the crisis into which Trump’s presidency is degenerating. Opposing the president and his policies has worked—not in every instance, but frequently enough—and all of the president’s campaign-trail talk about deal making and managerial skill seems comic now.

As Trump’s poll numbers collapse, it is vital to keep the pressure on. Trump’s policies are wrong, his appointments are awful, and his continued tenure threatens the stability and safety of the United States. He will get increasingly desperate—as this week’s extreme moves on immigration and world affairs well illustrate.

This is the time to say “no”—absolutely and unequivocally—to Donald Trump, to demand that Democrats stand firm against his initiatives and appointments, and to demand that responsible (or at the least politically savvy) Republicans join them.

This is also the time to push harder for accountability for the president and his aides and appointees—including the threat of impeachment. The math was always against him, but whatever claim on legitimacy Donald Trump might have been able to make after the November 8 election has long since evaporated. The numbers are now overwhelming: Trump won 46 percent of the vote in November, and his approval rating has fallen as low as 33 percent. Likewise, while he was opposed by 54 percent of Americans in November, his disapproval rating has now as high as 62 percent.

Of course, there are some folks who disapprove of Trump but still might support him against an unappealing Democrat, just as there are probably a few who approve of him but might support an appealing one. But the numbers tell a story that cannot be denied, and cannot be spun: Sky-high disapproval ratings are a plea for Trump to change course, but there is no evidence that he is capable of doing so. Trump’s vanishing approval rating has become a plea to the resistance, in Congress and in the streets, to do everything in our power to oppose the agenda of a president who began without a mandate and has continued to lose favor with the American people.

Support independent journalism that does not fall in line

Even before February 28, the reasons for Donald Trump’s imploding approval rating were abundantly clear: untrammeled corruption and personal enrichment to the tune of billions of dollars during an affordability crisis, a foreign policy guided only by his own derelict sense of morality, and the deployment of a murderous campaign of occupation, detention, and deportation on American streets. 

Now an undeclared, unauthorized, unpopular, and unconstitutional war of aggression against Iran has spread like wildfire through the region and into Europe. A new “forever war”—with an ever-increasing likelihood of American troops on the ground—may very well be upon us.  

As we’ve seen over and over, this administration uses lies, misdirection, and attempts to flood the zone to justify its abuses of power at home and abroad. Just as Trump, Marco Rubio, and Pete Hegseth offer erratic and contradictory rationales for the attacks on Iran, the administration is also spreading the lie that the upcoming midterm elections are under threat from noncitizens on voter rolls. When these lies go unchecked, they become the basis for further authoritarian encroachment and war. 

In these dark times, independent journalism is uniquely able to uncover the falsehoods that threaten our republic—and civilians around the world—and shine a bright light on the truth. 

The Nation’s experienced team of writers, editors, and fact-checkers understands the scale of what we’re up against and the urgency with which we have to act. That’s why we’re publishing critical reporting and analysis of the war on Iran, ICE violence at home, new forms of voter suppression emerging in the courts, and much more. 

But this journalism is possible only with your support.

This March, The Nation needs to raise $50,000 to ensure that we have the resources for reporting and analysis that sets the record straight and empowers people of conscience to organize. Will you donate today?

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