Terrible poll ratings would bother some politicians. Donald Trump isn’t one of them | Arwa Mahdawi
You’ll know the famous quote, bastardised from a 1926 column by the Baltimore journalist HL Mencken, that “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” The rest of the quote, less often cited, is: “Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.” It’s hard to disagree when you look at the polls. Because, despite everything, more than a third of Americans continue to think Donald Trump is doing a great job.
I’m not saying all is rosy for Trump: a new NBC News poll has found Trump’s popularity has plummeted to a second-term low. The cost of living in the US is rocketing and the country is embroiled in an immoral and economically disastrous war: two-thirds of Americans say the country is on the wrong path. But 37% still approve of Trump’s overall performance. That’s down from 42% in December but it’s still pretty damn high considering the US is being led by an adjudicated sexual predator who has started wars with both Iran and the pope recently, while making life at home harder. Trump can’t be blamed for everything, but there is evidence his policies have negatively affected growth, jobs and inflation.
Trump loves to brag about his poll numbers when they’re good. But he’s not bragging about this particular NBC News poll. Instead, he has spent the last couple of days posting alternative polls on Truth Social which “prove” he’s doing an amazing job. On Sunday, for example, he shared a post by @AmericaFirsst (sic) which claimed “Americans trust the Republican party on the ECONOMY and INFLATION by +6 points, tariffs by +2 points, immigration by +11 points …” Those numbers weren’t made-up; they were, however, cherrypicked and out of date. It seems they were plucked from a January Wall Street Journal piece titled “It’s Trump’s economy, and voters are unhappy with it, WSJ poll finds”.
The president can post as many misleading statistics as he likes but (unless you’re in that 37% of Americans), there is no getting around the fact that Trump isn’t exactly on a high. Democrats have consistently overperformed in recent special elections, sparking murmurings that a Democratic-controlled Senate is in reach. Meanwhile, the Iran war has accelerated infighting among the Maga movement. And Viktor Orbán’s recent defeat in Hungary, even after JD Vance campaigned for him, suggests Trump’s influence may be waning abroad.
But, apart from bruising Trump’s ego, does this series of defeats matter? “Here’s the real question,” Anthony Scaramucci, who was White House communications director for about three seconds during Trump 1.0, recently wrote on X. “Does [Trump] care about any of this? I would submit to everybody – he does not. He’s entered the nihilistic stage of his political career. The polls don’t matter … consequences don’t matter. That is the most dangerous version of this man.”
Scaramucci is right. Bad polls don’t mean Trump is going to hang his head in shame and resign. The only president who has ever done that was a scandal-plagued Richard Nixon back in 1974; his approval ratings were about 24% at the time. Rather than push him out of office, Trump’s low approval rating will probably make him dig in; make him even more vengeful. Additionally, a flailing Trump may make the Democrats lazy. I worry we’ll see a Democrat who wins on the basis that they’re not Trump in 2028, rather than because of their character or policy positions. They will inherit a terrible situation, spend the next four years failing to get much done, and then the popular pendulum will swing to the Republicans again.
Ultimately Trump is a symptom of a broken America, not the cause. To fix the country, we need to fix the conditions that have made 37% of Americans intent on standing by Trump no matter what. To quote HL Mencken again: “As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” Unfortunately, that great and glorious day looks to have arrived. Getting Trump out of office doesn’t necessarily get us out of this mess.
Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
The assault on freedom with Mehdi Hasan and Arwa Mahdawi
On Monday 8 June, join Mehdi Hasan and Arwa Mahdawi to discuss the seismic changes in geopolitics, the alarming rise of populism and nationalism, and the global implications. Live in London and livestreamed worldwide; book tickets here
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
