Conservatives say 'best case' for MAGA America is 'real pain'

President Donald Trump’s approval rating is already in a “catastrophic” situation and will only get worse as his base starts to feel “real pain,” warned three pundits at the conservative website The Bulwark on Tuesday.

“The best case scenario economically is where we're at now, which is real pain for people to experience,” commentator Tim Miller said in a panel that included his colleagues Jonathan V. Last and Sam Stein. “I don't think that 90% of the MAGA folks are going to stay with them. I really don't. It's hard to tell in the polls right now because there's a lag.”

A little later he added, “Yes, self-described MAGA folks, 90% of them are supportive of Iran, but that's just people who are self-described MAGA folks. I mean, how many people in those polls don't self-define as MAGA folks anymore because of what's happening? As we are sitting here,

literally as we are sitting here, the Marquette University law poll, which is like the gold standard in Wisconsin, they put out a poll today. Trump's net approval rating is minus 14%. which is, ‘the lowest net approval figure for him in both of his terms as president.’ I mean, these numbers are, who knows? They're catastrophic.”

When Last opined that he felt they should be even lower, Miller noted that the bottom has likely not yet been reached.

“I think it's getting worse,” Miller said. “I think it's getting worse. I guess my point. And I guess the point that I keep coming back to is I believe that because I believe that the actual environment, the people cannot accurately see the environment around them. And if you, if you are just right, and if you're just living your life in Green Bay and the real, the only real damage you've had to your life right now is that you filled your gas tank up one or two times, it's been more expensive.” But what happens when that same family can no longer afford to go on vacation or in other ways make ends meet?

At that point, Miller speculated, the bottom will fall out of Trump’s support. Last expressed a similar view earlier on the same day in his own Substack column.

“At root, there are only two possible explanations for the Trump era,” Last wrote. “A controlling plurality of Americans affirmatively want Trump and the Republican party’s post-liberal, authoritarian vision. Or, Americans don’t want post-liberalism—not really. They don’t even know what post-liberalism means. They’ve just voted for Trump because his terrible governance hasn’t impacted their lives. If they felt the real-world consequences of Trumpism, then they’d reject its illiberalism.”

If the latter scenario transpires, “our fellow Americans are capable of changing their minds from getting burnt by the stove,” meaning “we are all going to have to absorb the pain.”

By contrast Ashley St. Clair, a former anti-transgender activist and lover to X CEO Elon Musk, warned The Bulwark’s Cameron Kasky that it can be hard to get through to Trump supporters because his movement has become like a cult.

"It is a cult,” St. Clair told Kasky. “And what you have to understand is that in any abusive relationship, your access to other people is cut off. You're isolated. Your access to information is cut off. Your access to people who might have rational perspectives on what you're involved in — that's cut off too.”

She concluded, “These people are told it's all fake news. The only things you can trust are Twitter and Truth Social. And for better or worse, they actually believe that. They believe that established outlets are lying to them, that nothing those outlets publish can be true."