Alan Zendell, February 22, 2025

Because he has dominated our media and our attention for almost ten years, it feels like Donald Trump has been president forever, although in this incarnation it’s only been a month. The only president in the modern era who had a first-hundred-day agenda as aggressive as Trump’s was Franklin Roosevelt in 1933. FDR inherited a nation drowning in the throes of The Great Depression, but he never used phrases like “Make America Great Again.” He simply did it because America was in grave danger of collapsing, and the rest of the world was spinning out of control due to the rise of Communism and Fascism. Trump’s motivations are greed, megalomania, and avenging personal grudges.

Another thing about FDR, from Trump’s point of view, is that it was his being elected four times that resulted in the 22^nd amendment that limits a president to two terms. Trump has been publicly salivating about repealing the amendment, ignoring it, or finding a loophole around it. One idea floated by MAGA extremists is having someone else run for president in 2028 with Trump as his running mate. If they won, the new president would resign, and Trump would again be elevated to the presidency. The 22^nd amendment only specifies that someone may only be elected to that office twice.

Before we begin anointing Trump to a Putin-style imperial presidency, let’s not forget that contrary to MAGA claims, America does not have rigged elections. Voters can be slow to realize the true nature of a politician, but they eventually get it right. There are many reasons Trump won in 2024, but the mandate he claims to have received doesn’t exist. He won primarily because America is not ready to elect a woman as president, especially a woman of color. Kamala Harris received fifteen million fewer votes that Joe Biden did in 2020, running on a platform very like the one Biden used to revive our economy, return inflation to acceptable levels, and reduce unemployment to its lowest rate since WW2.

A month into Trump’s second term, we’re starting to see polling results about how the voters perceive his words and actions. Addressing Republican governors last week, Trump asserted that he had “unheard of” approval ratings of 69% and 71%. Whether that’s a lie or a delusional fantasy, those numbers are false. The most respected polling organizations have now released his voter approval/disapproval ratings after one month in office. According to NBC News, the results are:

• Pew Research Center: 47% approve of the president and 51% disapprove.
• Quinnipiac University: 45% approve of the president and 49% disapprove.
• Gallup: 45% approve of the president and 51% disapprove.
• Washington Post-Ipsos: 43% approve of the president and 48% disapprove.
• CNN: 47% approve of the president and 52% disapprove.
• Reuters/Ipsos: 44% approve of the president and 51% disapprove.

To place these numbers in perspective, Trump’s approval numbers were initially higher than in the first month of his first term, but they are the lowest any president has had since 1953  by an average of fifteen percentage points. In late December, Americans felt optimistic about Trump’s return to power by 52%-48%. After a month of watching his actions in office, they are now pessimistic by 54%-46%, a six point drop in less than two months.

There are more specific polling results that show, after a month in office, Trump is underwater with voters in several key areas. They fear his aggressive attempts to increase his own power and disregard Congress. They feel lied to about inflation, which he promised he would reduce to pre-pandemic levels (they had already dropped to pre-pandemic levels under Biden.) Majorities of polled voters are afraid of Elon Musk’s influence on Trump and oppose the politically motivated shutdown of federal agencies with the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs, a large percentage of which are held by veterans. Voters oppose abandoning NATO and Ukraine, and a significant majority oppose Trump’s plan to take over Gaza and relocate 2.2 million Palestinians.

An issue that could dominate polls in coming months is a growing awareness among average voters that Trump’s tariffs are primarily a back-door to increasing taxes on low-income Americans, while Republicans work to extend and expand tax cuts for the wealthy. Changing the tax code to increase the burden on lower income Americans requires the approval of Congress. But tariffs have essentially the same effect, and Congress has ceded most of the authority to issue them to the Executive Branch of government.

Given the extreme political polarization that exists in America, today, a six point drop in overall approval in one month is virtually unprecedented. It’s too soon to assume that Trump’s policies are in trouble, but if this trend continues, it won’t be long before Republicans in Congress start worrying about re-election next year and begin distancing themselves from Trump.