Trump presidency 'in terminal decline — if not outright collapse': columnist

According to New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie, Donald Trump may claim that he’s more popular than ever, but the evidence actually shows that his is “a presidency in terminal decline, if not outright collapse.” In fact, according to the numbers, “Trump is nearly as unpopular now as he has ever been.”

As evidence of this, Bouie cites several recent occurrences.

First, there are Trump’s latest poll numbers. With approval ratings stuck in the high 30s, he is “underwater on every issue that counts,” and voters are making it clear that they do not like the way he’s gone about his agenda. He’s losing support among the Latinos, Black Americans, and young men who put him into office, and barely maintaining his key demographic — white voters without college degrees.

At the same time, shifts in his administration and the GOP don’t bode well. While the promise of mass deportations was a strong selling point during the campaign, the actual practice has met such stark disapproval that Trump was forced to fire his fiercely loyal DHS head Kristi Noem. This comes as Republican lawmakers have experienced a historic number of retirements, which suggests they “see the writing on the wall.”

Then there is the president’s “foolhardy, reckless and immoral” war on Iran, which is already the most unpopular war in modern US history. Having initiated the conflict without congressional authorization or pubic buy-in, even high-profile Republicans like Tucker Carlson are voicing opposition.

Presidents can leverage what executive power they have, but to achieve their policy goals, much depends on their ability to persuade the public and potential political collaborators. An even modestly well-liked president can count on this.

“A distrusted, divisive and unpopular president, on the other hand,” writes Bouie, “quickly finds that he is unable to work his will on political actors who are more worried about their own fates than the president’s interests and appetites.”

This is the position in which Trump currently finds himself, with GOP congressional leaders shrugging off his demands to pass the SAVE America Act and the Supreme Court rejecting his signature tariff plan. A more respected president may not face such headwinds.

Instead of getting the adoration and allegiance he expects, Trump finds himself in the opposite position: “A lame duck whose White House is in disarray and whose actions have plunged the world into chaos. He thought he might remake the country in his own image. Instead, he’s likely to leave it like one of his casinos: broke, broken and in desperate need of new management.”