BTRTN: Trump at 50 Days - America is Unhappy, and Increasingly So
Tom at Born To Run The Numbers announced after Trump’s second Inaugural that his single goal in covering this administration was to focus on one question: will the American public buy it? Here is BTRTN's first such report, 50 days in:
https://borntorunthenumbers.com/2025/03/13/btrtn-trump-at-50-days-america-is-unhappy-and-increasingly-so/
Excerpts: "Shortly after Trump’s second Inaugural, I wrote that I had determined that the approach I was going to take in covering this administration was to focus on a single question: will the American public buy it? I had a hypothesis: they won’t. And 50 days into this teardown of America, the early signs seem to be confirming that instinct. In that brief time, whatever modest honeymoon Trump was enjoying, with a 50% approval rating at the outset of his second term, has dissipated quickly. While his approval rating has declined by only two points – still significant – his net approval dropped from +8 (50/42) to a shade underwater at -0.3 (47.6/47.9) in that span (data courtesy of 538; RCP shows a similar trend)... I suspect that will continue, since these polls do not include the rounds of threatened and pulled tariffs that have resulted in a 1,650-point drop in the Dow in the last week...
"t’s not hard to understand why Trump’s slippage has already occurred. Trump was elected largely because of the economy or, more specifically, voter frustration with higher prices and the high interest rates the Fed was using to (successfully) combat them...But, of course, Trump has no solutions to that; inflation, under the careful stewardship of the Fed, had already come down from a peak of 9% to roughly 2.5%. Prices overall are simply never going to come down (nor do we even want a deflationary spiral)...
"Apart from his economic policies, Trump’s foreign policy is unpopular – 44%/51%, and there is evidence this is declining further in March. Americans generally support Ukraine and Trump’s approval on his handling of the war stands at 21%/36%. Americans overwhelmingly believe (by 70% to 9%) that Russia is to blame for starting the war, not Ukraine, which of course is not Trump’s assessment...
"Party squabbles over how to achieve our American Identity are par for the course, but walking entirely away from them, particularly on the global front, is brand new. Trump is attempting to do just that. He is effectively declaring war on our allies and making friends with our enemies...
"It is hard to imagine that Trump will succeed in this bizarre quest. He does not have the strategic instinct, the execution skill or the communication prowess to make it happen. He is moving way too quickly and thoughtlessly, enamored with phrases like “shock and awe” and “break it, then fix it” to realize the United States of America is not a billionaires’ play toy nor a “business model” to be “disrupted.” The downward trajectory of his support is not just likely, it is inevitable."
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