Most of the complaints about Trump are coming from the chattering classes and are being heard by people who already hate Trump. Red America tuned these folks out long ago. And even if they hear the complaints, Trump voters are so jaded that they won't land anyway.
The only thing that will change that dynamic is if the economy enters a recession (which the Fed is trying to cause) or if tariff-driven inflation becomes so bad it turns Red America against him.
I agree Brent, except for the Fed part. I see no economic need to ease, and until trade/tariff policies are in place and Trump has moved on to other things, it would be irresponsible to do so absent some compelling case which no one can cite today.
I would agree with that if we were already at a neutral policy stance. We are not. We are still tight by 100 basis points.
Powell is betting that inflation will increase substantially as a result of tariffs. The data do not support 100 basis points of monetary restraint, especially since monetary policy acts with a lag.
Don't forget, he cut rates in the fall of 2024 when the case was much less compelling than today.
When I look at overall economic indicators-jobs, housing, inflation, GDP growth, trade flows… monetary policy looks about right to me. If I were Powell, I would tell Trump I’d reassess 6 months after he’s done with at least most of his tariff negotiations. They have a decidedly inflationary bias. When you raise prices it’s inflationary unless domestic production can replace those goods purchased -not usually the case.
America’s problem is not monetary policy. Few countries have done better. It’s fiscal policy. There are no constraints on Congress and a given President spending money we don’t have and refusing to reform underfunded entitlements. The doodoo hasn’t hit the fan yet, but when it does our grandchildren will be asking us some very tough questions about how we let this happen. None of these questions will be about monetary policy.
1) Trump is soaring. Anyome still invoking polls is living in the 20th century.
2) Ds hit 19% approval & are still falling because it is clear to the public they hste America and her institutions.
3) Voter registration shifts COMPLETELY refute polls. Virtually universal in their direction. (PA Ds lost more, down to sn active voter lead of 73,000 in PA---where they led by 1.1 m in 2016.
4) Ds right now---I mean today---are in a historical place, that of the Federalists in 1815, headed for extinction. This collapse is one of the 4 niggest stories of the 21st century, and "Trump's down" stories are not only wrong but accelerate that decline
Larry, my friend: right after you finished saying that no one should pay attention to the polls, you invoked them as evidence of how unpopular the Democrats are. Which is it? Are the polls all garbage, or can we still actually learn something from them?
Despite their struggles of late, I believe polls play an important role in any analysis of understanding contemporary American politics, as do VR stats. The latter do show concrete movement toward Republicans, and we've documented that extensively here. But we also don't know to what extent the people switching registrations are just catching up to voting habits they've had for several cycles, and those stats aren't available in all states. Moreover, we know that in a plurality of party-reg states, it's independents who have the largest share of registrants, not Ds or Rs. Let's have a little nuance in this conversation.
Lastly, if the only polling you trust re: Trump's approval is Rasmussen (which I've seen you cite before), that's risky as well. Rasmussen doesn't hide the fact that they are pro-Trump, and they are famously cryptic about their methodology. They may have gotten Trump's wins right, but a broken clock is still right twice a day. Averages are the best we're going to get, which is why we try to use those where we can over individual polls.
It's just interesting to me to see folks push back when the polling paints an unfavorable picture for Trump but never when TLP share polls that show Democrats are struggling, which is quite regularly. Perhaps worth pondering why that is.
1) I only referenced the one poll as it updated the one you cited.
2) Correct, can't cite even Ras or Baris. One thing we learned with Iran & Epstein is that like left-leaning polls they have a bias when you challenge their interpretation of MAGA.
3) You might have been right in 2016 about registrations "catching up" but remember I---almost alone---saw where these were headed in 2016 and said in Oct. "Trump will win w 300-320 EVs." (final 304). But they are no longer reflecting catch up. Hence in June of 2024 using voter reg I daid "Trump will win w 312 electoral votes & win the pop vote." l In Oct I said his pop vote win would be 1.5%.
We are seeing 3 big trends. First, the big INDEPENDENT #s are all Ds lraving the party. Second, R gains are Is moving right. Third, Rs (esp in PA and AZ and FL) are registering new voters.
Also, there are two other negative trends for Ds: CA is undergoing a massive court ordered voter roll purge, and feportations of inelihible votrrs nationwide is accelerating. Once the phony "81 m" is kicked out the #s show Ds have neen stagnant for a decade while Rs turn out more voters w every election.
"It's just interesting to me to see folks push back when the polling paints an unfavorable picture for Trump but never when TLP share polls that show Democrats are struggling, which is quite regularly. Perhaps worth pondering why that is."
Because polls always err in the same partisan direction.
That doesn't make sense. We're talking about the same polls showing that both Trump and Dems are underwater (and with Dems actually faring much worse than him). If polls always err in the same partisan direction, they would show Democrats performing better than they are.
That is my point. If the polls show Trump doing poorly - it doesn't mean anything because polls always show Trump doing poorly. It is boilerplate.
If the polls showing Democrats doing poorly it is taken more seriously because their performance has to be godawful for pollsters to admit it - it must be so bad they can't hide it.
Perhaps to throw a bone to Larry, we might look at the pollster that most closely called the 2024 election--which was Atlas Intel--and ignore all the allegedly "biased" ones he claims are designed to "besmirch the indisputable greatness of Trump".
On the other hand, it doesn't really paint a particularly bright picture of the public's view of Democrats, either; nonetheless, when asked "If the midterm elections for the House of Representatives were held today, who would you be most likely to vote for?" the numbers are 51.4 Democrats, 42.7% Republicans, 5.2% "Don't know", and 0.9% "Would Not Vote".
I would say this pretty much matches the "down but not out" assessment. The biggest obstacle for the Dems seems to be, in respondents' eyes, figuring out what direction to go in--86% of them agree with the statement "The Democratic party is facing a crisis of leadership".
Perhaps the all consuming hatred simply blurs reality too much, for Dems to realize the obvious. Trump is a term limited, nearly 80 year old President. Statistically speaking, he is most likely to exit the WH in a body bag.
Trump is not the Dem problem. Lousy policies that do not seem to be reforming, are the problem. Surely Trump's immigration optics could be better, but they do not change reality. The Dem position is any nonviolent migrant that can reach US soil can stay, regardless of their inability to be economically self supporting.
Polling shows between 750 million and 1 billion world residents would reside in the US, if they could. Current Dem Party policy portends, if they can get here, they can stay, absent murders or rapes. Millions of identity thefts are fine, as are wide spread use of US safety nets. Joel Kotkin, a liberal Dem who loathes Trump, cites Michael Lind, who labels this model "low wage/ high welfare" immigration. It is not remotely sustainable. Kotkin studies show a nearly 30% poverty rate for the undocumented in LA, nearly 3X the rate of native Californians. A number surely understated, because of the high cost of living in CA.
Americans who reside outside of wealthy Blue enclaves understand this. Earning a self sustaining living in a knowledge economy, lacking education, English and other skills, while battling, literally, millions of other new arrivals with the same limitations, is nearly impossible.
No one understands this reality better, than American Hispanic citizens whose neighborhoods still face millions of new arrivals in need of already scarce affordable housing, low skilled jobs and public services. The schools in Hispanic neighborhoods remain overwhelmed with new students lacking English skills, and similar previous education. The private academies where wealthy Dems educate their progeny, suffer no such problems. Likewise, for ERs and medical clinics in Hispanic neighborhoods. Dem Concierge doctors, not so much.
Trump polls are academically interesting, but Dems are missing the forest for the trees. They are consumed with an 80 year term limited President who won 42% of the Hispanic vote. What Dems should really fear, is Marco Rubio carrying 60% of Hispanic citizens in 2028 and beyond.
"The Dem position is any nonviolent migrant that can reach US soil can stay"
Remove the term "nonviolent" and you have their functionally true position - namely to categorically let all migrants in, oppose any measures that would allow for useful vetting, and then keep their fingers crossed that none of them are violent.
Remember, for the Dems, it’s not really about policy, the common good, and what voters need and want; it’s about what benefits the party, and psychological drivers like fear and abortion, and the machine winning - no matter what.
Also, “down, but not out” - give me a break. Wishful, biased, projection.
Living in their same media echo chamber bubble, the Democrats keep making the same mistake over and over again that they can manipulate public opinion against Trump and Republicans as their only strategy to win.
I get it... when you suck and you are a loser, accepting that you suck and are a loser is too hard to accept... and so you start to live in a mythological headspace that things are better than they are... that helps prevent you from hitting rock bottom.
But it is the resistance of hitting rock bottom that continues to keep the Democrats sucking and losing. They keep lying to themselves that Trump is just one step away from being completely disliked by the electorate... and the opposite is occurring... more exiting the Democrat asylum to support Trump because he is clearly the much better alternative.
I think that you are over-generalizing about Democrats, assuming that they are all like players on a sports team where there is a common goal of winning according to certain rules that are accepted by all competitors and impartially administered.
In fact, practically all major political parties contain factions that have substantially different values and policy preferences for achieving them. That is probably less the case now with Republicans than Democrats, although the MAGA bunch dominating the Republican Party is still no national majority.
In any case, there is a limit to the extent that the "progressive' (a.k.a., Marxist) wing of the Democratic Party will compromise on its fervently held belief in government control of society to achieve "equity" -- even if that means losing elections and suffering from the sort of reactionary backlash that we are now experiencing.
I say that as a centrist who thinks that the current mix of private markets and government regulation/taxation/subsidization in the U.S. is fairly reasonable, although I would support additional anti-poverty, pro-environmental changes if I could trust them to be enacted by people more rational than, say, the Biden administration.
Two salient points to keep in mind as the nation edge's toward the next presidential election still three and a half years away; light years for those consumed with the frequency of snapshot opinion polls purporting to show diminishing support for President Trump on many if not most matters.
First, Donald Trump is already serving his second term and will not be the GOP nominee in 2028, for which he may be more pleased even than his relentless detractors.
Second, a divided Democratic Party in political tatters, without clear leadership but burdened by a serious progressive Left problem, will not pose a formidable challenge to ANY candidate topping the GOP ticket in 2028.
Given all this, the smart polls going forward will be measuring if the Democratic Party, or who in the Democratic Party, might show signs of a measurable political pulse.
We can only hope that Trump will respect the Constitutional limitation of two terms. But even if he does, there's his alter ego, J.D. Vance waiting a heartbeat away, in a political system where it will still be unlikely for there to be a credible centrist presidential candidate.
By mid-2025, Donald Trump’s second-term approval ratings have slipped significantly. What began as a post-election high—buoyed by public exhaustion with the Biden years and early optimism about a political reset—has steadily eroded. Today, barely 44 percent approve of his performance, and he’s underwater with independents, Hispanic voters, and even showing cracks among Republicans over his handling of the Epstein files.
But to say Trump is “down” is misleading if it implies vulnerability. Trump may be unpopular, but he is not exposed. What shields him is not public goodwill, but institutional passivity—above all, a supine Congress that has abandoned its oversight role. Despite declining support, he continues to govern without real constraint or accountability.
The modern presidency was never meant to function unchecked. Congress exists to write laws, appropriate funds, and restrain executive overreach. Yet under Trump’s second term, Congress has functionally ceded its powers, allowing the president to operate more like a prime minister with a compliant majority than the constrained executive envisioned in the Constitution.
Despite his legal baggage and polarizing style, Trump enjoys a party leadership that refuses to investigate him, a Senate that rubber-stamps key appointments, and House committee chairs who focus more on punishing political enemies than scrutinizing executive power. Even controversial moves—like sweeping tariffs or mass deportation raids—generate no meaningful pushback from lawmakers. His base remains loyal, and the legislative branch behaves more like a shield than a check.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party—Trump’s nominal opposition—is in disarray. Its national favorability is at historic lows, and its congressional leadership fares even worse in the polls. Rather than seizing this moment to rally Americans around a clear alternative, the party appears to have drifted leftward in cultural tone while remaining uninspired and fragmented on economic vision. Its most visible figures either struggle to connect with working- and middle-class voters or seem more preoccupied with symbolic virtue-signaling than with articulating a practical, compelling agenda.
The tragedy is that many of the policies that could form the backbone of such an agenda—affordable housing, infrastructure expansion, smart immigration reform, industrial renewal—are broadly popular. Yet Democrats have failed to unify around them or translate them into a credible governing narrative. Instead of offering a robust repudiation of Trumpism, they have often fallen back on moral denunciation or procedural rhetoric, which persuades no one outside the base.
As a result, Trump’s declining approval has little real consequence. In previous eras, such slippage might have signaled a tipping point: bipartisan rebukes, midterm losses, or legislative gridlock. Today, with a cowed Congress and an ineffective opposition, it amounts to background noise. Trump continues to project power and shape national policy with minimal resistance.
The uncomfortable truth is that Trump’s endurance is not just about his base—it’s about the collapse of meaningful opposition. He is “down,” but the structures meant to check him are weaker than ever. And unless Congress reasserts itself and Democrats find the courage and coherence to lead a majority coalition, Trump is not just “not out”—he remains the most powerful man in American politics.
I gave you a "like" for your general analysis, but with the qualification that I made in a post above that it is normal for a large political party --the Democrats in this case -- to have widely disparate factions, including the "progressive/Marxist" faction that is not going to abandon its ideological preference for governmental control of society to achieve "equity" for the sake of increasing the Democratic Party's chance of winning elections.
That's why I would like there to be a credible centrist party that I could support with some consistency (although not knee-jerk loyalty to every candidate).
You might think such things are a little more important than who likes who, or who wants who to fail. You want my vote, this is what you need to get into and not take over but facilitate it's expansion. Quite frankly, there aren't any Dems intelligent enough, at leqst in leadership or wanna be leaders, at this time to not screw up something like this by trying to take it over.
I read these type of articles less and less. Especially now when the administration is moving so fast on so many fronts. It's almost minute to minute change. They serve no value to my life or to my expectations for the future. Maybe in a year. But I would say, when the left said nothing about biden for four years, the same time frame should be given to Trump. Remember, 70% said this country said it was on the wrong path and biden's approval rating was at 66%. No one has ever won re election with a disapproval rating that high. And the left waited for his last few months to take any steps to recognize what a terrible person and candidate biden was. And now, no matter how low Trump's numbers are, the Dems number's are lower. And I see absolutely no change in the Dems failed worldview at the time of their election loss, now. I don't understand why the left isn't spending 100% of their time trying to become winners. As we saw last Nov, denigrating Trump is not a winning strategy. The more light that shines on Trump, the worse the situation gets for Dems.
As for polling, I do my own personally polling everyday. Personal polling is what matters to me and I believe many more. My poll at this time says Trump is doing great things that help me and my family. Yes, he has faults and errors, but who doesn't. And what affirms my post is that good (ex?) friends are still wacko upset at every thing he does. I have yet to hear how much their retirement accounts have improved. Nor that they will not accept the spoils of such moves by this administration.
I too have been watching the drop in Trump's poll numbers. I think they will go quite a bit lower and I also think they won't deter Trump in his policies on deportation nor overall about tariffs.
All of media, and just about all of the chattering classes exist in the top 20%, and both deportations and tariffs hurt them the most. The top 10% by income are half of all consumer spending, and what is being bought is often enough either servants to cook and clean and build stuff, or beautiful trinkets from overseas. The well to do don't want to pay more for anything, it transcends party affiliation.
Deportations are great for journalists writing human interest stories, combined with way over in left field sympathies of most journos and they create quite some influence on public sentiment.
Congress gave up legislating way back in Obama's time, Presidents are the only way to get things done. I hope Trump is a successful President, not that he is popular, but rather that he leaves the country in better shape than he found it. It's what we should wish for every president.
Two Tucker Carlson interviews should be watched to get a take on the Epstein matter and the demos problems. the first is with Darryl Cooper and the second with Charlie Kirk. Both are good interviews, a lot of facts and much speculation with believability .
Most of the complaints about Trump are coming from the chattering classes and are being heard by people who already hate Trump. Red America tuned these folks out long ago. And even if they hear the complaints, Trump voters are so jaded that they won't land anyway.
The only thing that will change that dynamic is if the economy enters a recession (which the Fed is trying to cause) or if tariff-driven inflation becomes so bad it turns Red America against him.
I agree Brent, except for the Fed part. I see no economic need to ease, and until trade/tariff policies are in place and Trump has moved on to other things, it would be irresponsible to do so absent some compelling case which no one can cite today.
I would agree with that if we were already at a neutral policy stance. We are not. We are still tight by 100 basis points.
Powell is betting that inflation will increase substantially as a result of tariffs. The data do not support 100 basis points of monetary restraint, especially since monetary policy acts with a lag.
Don't forget, he cut rates in the fall of 2024 when the case was much less compelling than today.
When I look at overall economic indicators-jobs, housing, inflation, GDP growth, trade flows… monetary policy looks about right to me. If I were Powell, I would tell Trump I’d reassess 6 months after he’s done with at least most of his tariff negotiations. They have a decidedly inflationary bias. When you raise prices it’s inflationary unless domestic production can replace those goods purchased -not usually the case.
America’s problem is not monetary policy. Few countries have done better. It’s fiscal policy. There are no constraints on Congress and a given President spending money we don’t have and refusing to reform underfunded entitlements. The doodoo hasn’t hit the fan yet, but when it does our grandchildren will be asking us some very tough questions about how we let this happen. None of these questions will be about monetary policy.
Some realities:
1) Trump is soaring. Anyome still invoking polls is living in the 20th century.
2) Ds hit 19% approval & are still falling because it is clear to the public they hste America and her institutions.
3) Voter registration shifts COMPLETELY refute polls. Virtually universal in their direction. (PA Ds lost more, down to sn active voter lead of 73,000 in PA---where they led by 1.1 m in 2016.
4) Ds right now---I mean today---are in a historical place, that of the Federalists in 1815, headed for extinction. This collapse is one of the 4 niggest stories of the 21st century, and "Trump's down" stories are not only wrong but accelerate that decline
Larry, my friend: right after you finished saying that no one should pay attention to the polls, you invoked them as evidence of how unpopular the Democrats are. Which is it? Are the polls all garbage, or can we still actually learn something from them?
Despite their struggles of late, I believe polls play an important role in any analysis of understanding contemporary American politics, as do VR stats. The latter do show concrete movement toward Republicans, and we've documented that extensively here. But we also don't know to what extent the people switching registrations are just catching up to voting habits they've had for several cycles, and those stats aren't available in all states. Moreover, we know that in a plurality of party-reg states, it's independents who have the largest share of registrants, not Ds or Rs. Let's have a little nuance in this conversation.
Lastly, if the only polling you trust re: Trump's approval is Rasmussen (which I've seen you cite before), that's risky as well. Rasmussen doesn't hide the fact that they are pro-Trump, and they are famously cryptic about their methodology. They may have gotten Trump's wins right, but a broken clock is still right twice a day. Averages are the best we're going to get, which is why we try to use those where we can over individual polls.
It's just interesting to me to see folks push back when the polling paints an unfavorable picture for Trump but never when TLP share polls that show Democrats are struggling, which is quite regularly. Perhaps worth pondering why that is.
Good points. I would say
1) I only referenced the one poll as it updated the one you cited.
2) Correct, can't cite even Ras or Baris. One thing we learned with Iran & Epstein is that like left-leaning polls they have a bias when you challenge their interpretation of MAGA.
3) You might have been right in 2016 about registrations "catching up" but remember I---almost alone---saw where these were headed in 2016 and said in Oct. "Trump will win w 300-320 EVs." (final 304). But they are no longer reflecting catch up. Hence in June of 2024 using voter reg I daid "Trump will win w 312 electoral votes & win the pop vote." l In Oct I said his pop vote win would be 1.5%.
We are seeing 3 big trends. First, the big INDEPENDENT #s are all Ds lraving the party. Second, R gains are Is moving right. Third, Rs (esp in PA and AZ and FL) are registering new voters.
Also, there are two other negative trends for Ds: CA is undergoing a massive court ordered voter roll purge, and feportations of inelihible votrrs nationwide is accelerating. Once the phony "81 m" is kicked out the #s show Ds have neen stagnant for a decade while Rs turn out more voters w every election.
"It's just interesting to me to see folks push back when the polling paints an unfavorable picture for Trump but never when TLP share polls that show Democrats are struggling, which is quite regularly. Perhaps worth pondering why that is."
Because polls always err in the same partisan direction.
That doesn't make sense. We're talking about the same polls showing that both Trump and Dems are underwater (and with Dems actually faring much worse than him). If polls always err in the same partisan direction, they would show Democrats performing better than they are.
That is my point. If the polls show Trump doing poorly - it doesn't mean anything because polls always show Trump doing poorly. It is boilerplate.
If the polls showing Democrats doing poorly it is taken more seriously because their performance has to be godawful for pollsters to admit it - it must be so bad they can't hide it.
Perhaps to throw a bone to Larry, we might look at the pollster that most closely called the 2024 election--which was Atlas Intel--and ignore all the allegedly "biased" ones he claims are designed to "besmirch the indisputable greatness of Trump".
That pollster puts him at 55% (technically 54.9%) disapproval, as of 7/18/25: https://atlasintel.org/polls/general-release-polls
On the other hand, it doesn't really paint a particularly bright picture of the public's view of Democrats, either; nonetheless, when asked "If the midterm elections for the House of Representatives were held today, who would you be most likely to vote for?" the numbers are 51.4 Democrats, 42.7% Republicans, 5.2% "Don't know", and 0.9% "Would Not Vote".
I would say this pretty much matches the "down but not out" assessment. The biggest obstacle for the Dems seems to be, in respondents' eyes, figuring out what direction to go in--86% of them agree with the statement "The Democratic party is facing a crisis of leadership".
Perhaps the all consuming hatred simply blurs reality too much, for Dems to realize the obvious. Trump is a term limited, nearly 80 year old President. Statistically speaking, he is most likely to exit the WH in a body bag.
Trump is not the Dem problem. Lousy policies that do not seem to be reforming, are the problem. Surely Trump's immigration optics could be better, but they do not change reality. The Dem position is any nonviolent migrant that can reach US soil can stay, regardless of their inability to be economically self supporting.
Polling shows between 750 million and 1 billion world residents would reside in the US, if they could. Current Dem Party policy portends, if they can get here, they can stay, absent murders or rapes. Millions of identity thefts are fine, as are wide spread use of US safety nets. Joel Kotkin, a liberal Dem who loathes Trump, cites Michael Lind, who labels this model "low wage/ high welfare" immigration. It is not remotely sustainable. Kotkin studies show a nearly 30% poverty rate for the undocumented in LA, nearly 3X the rate of native Californians. A number surely understated, because of the high cost of living in CA.
Americans who reside outside of wealthy Blue enclaves understand this. Earning a self sustaining living in a knowledge economy, lacking education, English and other skills, while battling, literally, millions of other new arrivals with the same limitations, is nearly impossible.
No one understands this reality better, than American Hispanic citizens whose neighborhoods still face millions of new arrivals in need of already scarce affordable housing, low skilled jobs and public services. The schools in Hispanic neighborhoods remain overwhelmed with new students lacking English skills, and similar previous education. The private academies where wealthy Dems educate their progeny, suffer no such problems. Likewise, for ERs and medical clinics in Hispanic neighborhoods. Dem Concierge doctors, not so much.
Trump polls are academically interesting, but Dems are missing the forest for the trees. They are consumed with an 80 year term limited President who won 42% of the Hispanic vote. What Dems should really fear, is Marco Rubio carrying 60% of Hispanic citizens in 2028 and beyond.
"The Dem position is any nonviolent migrant that can reach US soil can stay"
Remove the term "nonviolent" and you have their functionally true position - namely to categorically let all migrants in, oppose any measures that would allow for useful vetting, and then keep their fingers crossed that none of them are violent.
Remember, for the Dems, it’s not really about policy, the common good, and what voters need and want; it’s about what benefits the party, and psychological drivers like fear and abortion, and the machine winning - no matter what.
Also, “down, but not out” - give me a break. Wishful, biased, projection.
Living in their same media echo chamber bubble, the Democrats keep making the same mistake over and over again that they can manipulate public opinion against Trump and Republicans as their only strategy to win.
I get it... when you suck and you are a loser, accepting that you suck and are a loser is too hard to accept... and so you start to live in a mythological headspace that things are better than they are... that helps prevent you from hitting rock bottom.
But it is the resistance of hitting rock bottom that continues to keep the Democrats sucking and losing. They keep lying to themselves that Trump is just one step away from being completely disliked by the electorate... and the opposite is occurring... more exiting the Democrat asylum to support Trump because he is clearly the much better alternative.
I think that you are over-generalizing about Democrats, assuming that they are all like players on a sports team where there is a common goal of winning according to certain rules that are accepted by all competitors and impartially administered.
In fact, practically all major political parties contain factions that have substantially different values and policy preferences for achieving them. That is probably less the case now with Republicans than Democrats, although the MAGA bunch dominating the Republican Party is still no national majority.
In any case, there is a limit to the extent that the "progressive' (a.k.a., Marxist) wing of the Democratic Party will compromise on its fervently held belief in government control of society to achieve "equity" -- even if that means losing elections and suffering from the sort of reactionary backlash that we are now experiencing.
I say that as a centrist who thinks that the current mix of private markets and government regulation/taxation/subsidization in the U.S. is fairly reasonable, although I would support additional anti-poverty, pro-environmental changes if I could trust them to be enacted by people more rational than, say, the Biden administration.
Two salient points to keep in mind as the nation edge's toward the next presidential election still three and a half years away; light years for those consumed with the frequency of snapshot opinion polls purporting to show diminishing support for President Trump on many if not most matters.
First, Donald Trump is already serving his second term and will not be the GOP nominee in 2028, for which he may be more pleased even than his relentless detractors.
Second, a divided Democratic Party in political tatters, without clear leadership but burdened by a serious progressive Left problem, will not pose a formidable challenge to ANY candidate topping the GOP ticket in 2028.
Given all this, the smart polls going forward will be measuring if the Democratic Party, or who in the Democratic Party, might show signs of a measurable political pulse.
We can only hope that Trump will respect the Constitutional limitation of two terms. But even if he does, there's his alter ego, J.D. Vance waiting a heartbeat away, in a political system where it will still be unlikely for there to be a credible centrist presidential candidate.
"The Epstein Files" are the newly dominant branch of BlueAnon.
Democrats need a coherent platform not parsing of polls about OMB
By mid-2025, Donald Trump’s second-term approval ratings have slipped significantly. What began as a post-election high—buoyed by public exhaustion with the Biden years and early optimism about a political reset—has steadily eroded. Today, barely 44 percent approve of his performance, and he’s underwater with independents, Hispanic voters, and even showing cracks among Republicans over his handling of the Epstein files.
But to say Trump is “down” is misleading if it implies vulnerability. Trump may be unpopular, but he is not exposed. What shields him is not public goodwill, but institutional passivity—above all, a supine Congress that has abandoned its oversight role. Despite declining support, he continues to govern without real constraint or accountability.
The modern presidency was never meant to function unchecked. Congress exists to write laws, appropriate funds, and restrain executive overreach. Yet under Trump’s second term, Congress has functionally ceded its powers, allowing the president to operate more like a prime minister with a compliant majority than the constrained executive envisioned in the Constitution.
Despite his legal baggage and polarizing style, Trump enjoys a party leadership that refuses to investigate him, a Senate that rubber-stamps key appointments, and House committee chairs who focus more on punishing political enemies than scrutinizing executive power. Even controversial moves—like sweeping tariffs or mass deportation raids—generate no meaningful pushback from lawmakers. His base remains loyal, and the legislative branch behaves more like a shield than a check.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party—Trump’s nominal opposition—is in disarray. Its national favorability is at historic lows, and its congressional leadership fares even worse in the polls. Rather than seizing this moment to rally Americans around a clear alternative, the party appears to have drifted leftward in cultural tone while remaining uninspired and fragmented on economic vision. Its most visible figures either struggle to connect with working- and middle-class voters or seem more preoccupied with symbolic virtue-signaling than with articulating a practical, compelling agenda.
The tragedy is that many of the policies that could form the backbone of such an agenda—affordable housing, infrastructure expansion, smart immigration reform, industrial renewal—are broadly popular. Yet Democrats have failed to unify around them or translate them into a credible governing narrative. Instead of offering a robust repudiation of Trumpism, they have often fallen back on moral denunciation or procedural rhetoric, which persuades no one outside the base.
As a result, Trump’s declining approval has little real consequence. In previous eras, such slippage might have signaled a tipping point: bipartisan rebukes, midterm losses, or legislative gridlock. Today, with a cowed Congress and an ineffective opposition, it amounts to background noise. Trump continues to project power and shape national policy with minimal resistance.
The uncomfortable truth is that Trump’s endurance is not just about his base—it’s about the collapse of meaningful opposition. He is “down,” but the structures meant to check him are weaker than ever. And unless Congress reasserts itself and Democrats find the courage and coherence to lead a majority coalition, Trump is not just “not out”—he remains the most powerful man in American politics.
I gave you a "like" for your general analysis, but with the qualification that I made in a post above that it is normal for a large political party --the Democrats in this case -- to have widely disparate factions, including the "progressive/Marxist" faction that is not going to abandon its ideological preference for governmental control of society to achieve "equity" for the sake of increasing the Democratic Party's chance of winning elections.
That's why I would like there to be a credible centrist party that I could support with some consistency (although not knee-jerk loyalty to every candidate).
I crave a centrist party!
I have a question, why aren't the Dems involved in and developing policies for the following:
https://www.thefp.com/p/here-come-the-new-industrialists-tech-working-class-politics
You might think such things are a little more important than who likes who, or who wants who to fail. You want my vote, this is what you need to get into and not take over but facilitate it's expansion. Quite frankly, there aren't any Dems intelligent enough, at leqst in leadership or wanna be leaders, at this time to not screw up something like this by trying to take it over.
Great link, Batya Ungar-Sargon calls herself a left wing populist Marxist, and I love the way she writes.
Not sure what it matters what she classifies herself unless there's a point to be made and I am missing it.
I read these type of articles less and less. Especially now when the administration is moving so fast on so many fronts. It's almost minute to minute change. They serve no value to my life or to my expectations for the future. Maybe in a year. But I would say, when the left said nothing about biden for four years, the same time frame should be given to Trump. Remember, 70% said this country said it was on the wrong path and biden's approval rating was at 66%. No one has ever won re election with a disapproval rating that high. And the left waited for his last few months to take any steps to recognize what a terrible person and candidate biden was. And now, no matter how low Trump's numbers are, the Dems number's are lower. And I see absolutely no change in the Dems failed worldview at the time of their election loss, now. I don't understand why the left isn't spending 100% of their time trying to become winners. As we saw last Nov, denigrating Trump is not a winning strategy. The more light that shines on Trump, the worse the situation gets for Dems.
As for polling, I do my own personally polling everyday. Personal polling is what matters to me and I believe many more. My poll at this time says Trump is doing great things that help me and my family. Yes, he has faults and errors, but who doesn't. And what affirms my post is that good (ex?) friends are still wacko upset at every thing he does. I have yet to hear how much their retirement accounts have improved. Nor that they will not accept the spoils of such moves by this administration.
Is it November 3, 2026 yet? November 7, 2028? Probably not much will happen between now and then....
I too have been watching the drop in Trump's poll numbers. I think they will go quite a bit lower and I also think they won't deter Trump in his policies on deportation nor overall about tariffs.
All of media, and just about all of the chattering classes exist in the top 20%, and both deportations and tariffs hurt them the most. The top 10% by income are half of all consumer spending, and what is being bought is often enough either servants to cook and clean and build stuff, or beautiful trinkets from overseas. The well to do don't want to pay more for anything, it transcends party affiliation.
Deportations are great for journalists writing human interest stories, combined with way over in left field sympathies of most journos and they create quite some influence on public sentiment.
Congress gave up legislating way back in Obama's time, Presidents are the only way to get things done. I hope Trump is a successful President, not that he is popular, but rather that he leaves the country in better shape than he found it. It's what we should wish for every president.
Two Tucker Carlson interviews should be watched to get a take on the Epstein matter and the demos problems. the first is with Darryl Cooper and the second with Charlie Kirk. Both are good interviews, a lot of facts and much speculation with believability .