Donald Trump speaks with journalists after delivering his speech in a plenary session during the 56th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, WEF, in Davos, Switzerland, Wednesday, January 21, 2026. Laurent Gillieron/Pool via REUTERS
As Trump’s dementia worsens, several axioms are useful for interpreting his increasingly incoherent bloviation.
Axiom #1: Whatever he asserts to be a fact is either a wild exaggeration or a bald-faced lie. Always disregard.
Axiom #2: Whatever he blames on anyone else is something he’s done. He projects like mad, so his accusations are always windows onto what he’s worrying that others will discover about himself.
Axiom #3: Whatever he criticizes as being fake news is a fact he doesn’t want you to know. So pay special attention to it.
Axiom #4: Whenever he attacks some source of information — a survey, poll, or report — it’s come up with some truth he fears. So look at it and share it.
(If you’ve got any other axioms, please share them with us.)
Apropos of the fourth axiom comes today’s New York Times/Siena University poll, which prompted a bilious message from Trump, saying he’s adding it to his lawsuit against TheNew York Times.
Hence, the poll is worth your looking at and sharing.
What does it show? That all the hand-wringing over Trump’s so-called “realignment” in the 2024 election was rubbish. There was no realignment.
It’s true that when Trump took office a year ago, his approval rating was above 50 percent and he had made significant breakthroughs among traditionally Democratic groups of voters — especially young, nonwhite and and low-turnouts.
But now that’s all gone. Only 40 percent of registered voters now approve of his performance. The supposed “demographic shifts” of the last election have completely vanished. Young and nonwhite voters disapprove of him even more than they did then, although he has kept most of his support among older and white voters.
Overall, among registered voters nationwide, Democrats lead by 5 percentage points. It’s the largest lead for the Democrats in a Times/Siena national poll since 2020. It would be enough for them to take back the House of Representatives.
The poll was done between January 12 and 17, before Trump threatened Greenland and after an ICE agent killed Renee Good but before many of the other atrocities committed by ICE in Minnesota fully came to light.
But the biggest problem for Trump appears to be the economy. He was elected for two reasons: He said he’d get prices down and avoid foreign entanglements. He’s reneged “bigly” on both promises.
Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/