Trump’s Approval Ratings Are Tanking
“I voted for him, but I didn’t vote for this” has been a common refrain lately
There has been a lot of “we tried to warn them” since Trump took office, and while most people aren’t “I told you so” type of people, in this case, that rule doesn’t seem to apply, and for good reasons. Millions of Latinos tried to warn our respective communities, Black women spoke up and tried to warn everybody, and even white people tried to warn their own. But all those forewarnings were met with commentary suggesting that they were paranoid and excessive.
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Many analyzed the Heritage Foundation’s “Mandate for Leadership” (Project 2025) and exposed both wealthy elite financial backers and contributors. The warnings in the over 900-page document were exposed, linking them to Trump. In the midst of all that, based on a tip, my reporting forced Heritage to reprint a new document and re-release it after revealing corporate entities that didn’t want to be named, like Ernst & Young and Booz Allen Hamilton. Those corporations demanded their names be removed, requiring a massive update.
Eventually, Trump declared, very loosely, that he had nothing to do with Project 2025 because technically, he didn’t. It’s a position the White House stands by today. However, he never denounced it because he broadly supported the policy proposals in it. The policies in his America First plan are identical. Meanwhile, in his first few months in office, he has implemented many of the policies in Project 2025, overlapping with his America First plan.
Trump’s first term was similar. In 2018, the Heritage Foundation bragged that 64% of the policy ideas in its “Mandate for Leadership” (Project 2017, if you will) were included in Trump’s budget.
Now we find ourselves in a world where willful ignorance about what was coming rules the day, and all of U.S. society, along with much of the world, has to pay for it. Many of those same people who ignored the warnings now have serious buyer's remorse. A common phrase across the racial, ethnic, and political spectrum is, “I voted for him, but I didn't vote for this!” A statement many find comically tragic, and while others have tried to sympathize with it, they struggle.
If you can give the Trump camp credit for anything, it’s for forcing people to learn about things like tariffs and the inherent racism that comes with his Christian white nationalist platform. Even then, his campaign had liberals agreeing that yes, criminal noncitizens should be deported, but no one, not Trump or liberal pundits, defined what a “criminal” migrant was to them. This led the Trump camp to treat the issue as bipartisan, and now, people are shocked at what’s happening.
Trump’s support across every aspect of his administration is struggling badly because his blind supporters feel they were lied to (they were), while those who didn’t support him struggle to plan how to counter the duplicity, hate, inhumanity, insanity, and outright incompetence. Are we at a point where we can transcend some political differences for the betterment of all? Maybe.
However, one thing is becoming evident by the day as more surveys are published: the country didn’t move to the right, as Democrat strategists prematurely suggested immediately after the election. Voters were lied to. In most cases, for so long that they fell for some of Trump’s garbage like the “migrant crime wave,” while laughing off his racist comments about migrants eating people’s pets and disparaging various other nonwhite communities. We saw voters and the media fall for a lot, with some calling migrants “illegals,” suggesting criminality.
The pushback for his actions on immigration, tariffs making things more expensive, and threats to social services becoming a reality every day are costing him. Add the displeasure with his promise to be a “peace president” as he threatens war and has sent over $15 billion to Israel to continue its genocide and start a war with Iran, Trump is taking a bit of a beating in polls.
War
After nearly two years of allowing Israel to slaughter tens, if not hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza with impunity, it was inevitable that the West’s colonial outpost in the Middle East would start a war with Iran by attacking the nation, unprovoked, and under false pretenses. Despite U.S. Intelligence indicating that Iran has no such program, the narrative to justify war, that is, to manufacture consent, suggests Iran has a nuclear program that is a threat to the West, to the U.S. specifically.
In March, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard told the Senate Select Committee on National Intelligence that, based on the Intelligence Community’s (IC) collective assessment, “The IC continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003,” and yet, here we are.
Trump dismissed the assessment when asked about it.
“I don't care what she said. I think they were very close to having one,” President Donald Trump said.
It’s clear that neither liberals, independents, nor MAGA want a war with Iran and want the U.S. to stop funding Israel’s genocide. Each group may have its own reasons for their respective positions, but the result is the same: voters don’t want any more war. By getting involved in any war, let alone in the Middle East, Trump is backing off on a huge campaign promise.
Many voters are turning on him for this.
Immigration
A lot of Trump supporters are taking exception to how Trump is handling his so-far-failed mass deportation efforts. Granting various federal agencies authority in our cities and towns while also preoccupying local and state cops with immigration is falling flat on its face. All the bluster about the so-called deep state seems to have died as Trump empowers the same agencies and tactics he decried to target civilians, both citizens and noncitizens.
His promise to escalate his efforts and have the military on our streets “everywhere” isn’t sitting well with the crowd who once thought former President Barack Obama was going to invade Texas to take our guns with Operation Jade Helm. Attempting to override due process to deport noncitizens was initially celebrated by his supporters. But now, since dozens of U.S. citizens have been taken into custody by what people refer to as Trump’s Gestapo, many are worried.
Trump’s policies are starting to push his supporters to realize how vulnerable he is making them to the federal government as the White House tries to operate an unconstitutional federalized police force in their communities, along with everyone else’s, backed by the U.S. military. Is there some regret sitting in? It appears so.
Many people who voted for him are displeased.
Economy
Tariffs, war with Iran, mass government layoffs, and mass deportations will all have a negative economic impact on the country. While the U.S. has yet to feel the effects of mass deportations, the added tax on everyday products and the threat of fuel prices rising after Iran showed that they can easily close the Strait of Hormuz, blocking shipping lanes, highlights the White House’s fast and loose approach to the economy.
After promising an economic turnaround after rising inflation prices, Trump has done little, if anything, to improve the lives of everyday people, as many claimed was justification for their voting for him. According to various polls, most voters are unhappy with Trump’s handling of the economy, and no matter what he says or does, his waffling on key issues is wearing thin.
Instead, targeting much-needed social services for the poorest people will only exacerbate the economic situation, as the impact from the loss of revenue will be felt the greatest in local communities. The Trump administration has continuously turned on the voters who elected him, and his pivot against the poor will be felt the most by his base, which is largely white and poor (or barely middle class) in rural America.
If he’s willing to throw his mostly white base to the wolves, he will certainly be even more aggressive to nonwhite communities, as he has shown us before.
The Rest
From education to policing and mass incarceration, the Trump White House’s focus on white Christian nationalist ideas, largely driven by the person really in control, Stephen Miller, is leading us to precisely the dystopian image of U.S. society depicted in documents like Project 2025 and the minds of billionaire funders of politicians and hate groups.
This does not bode well for his voters, who called everyone who pointed this out “alarmists,” among many other loving and caring insults. However, most of his core base of voters are still behind him because they care more about harming non-white people than harming themselves, one of the biggest drivers of hate and bigotry. The language used to demonize nonwhite people who benefit from social programs leads many white voters to believe they won’t be targets.
But as history has shown, and as Trump is showing us now, they couldn’t be more wrong.
Arturo is an independent journalist whose work can be found at Unicorn Riot, The Antagonist Magazine, Latino Rebels, and more. Arturo is also on TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, and Threads. To support his work, become a paid subscriber or donate via Venmo, PayPal, or Cash App.
A comprehensive summary I would say. Thank you.
Not surprising as you say that his racist base bought that somehow this billionaire is for them and not for a swamp of war mongers, monopolies and prisons. His polls tanking must be best outcome for such a violent narcissist.