One year On: Trump’s Challenges

Illustration by THE ECONOMIST magazine (Tim McDonagh)

IT’S BEEN ONE WHOLE YEAR since Donald J Trump achieved re-election to the US Presidency, and also just one year to our national mid-term elections of 2026.

It’s an apt, probably very obvious time to do some stock-taking - like just about every news-outlet in the western world is now doing – and in other parts of the globe as well, who all turn their attention onto America at last some of the time.

Taking stock must include reviewing our suddenly changed political landscape. Certainly changed for us in New York (see illustration at left).  I opened my radio broadcast/podcast this week by voicing once again my occasional reminder of where The Media Beat originates (and has originated ever since the election campaign of 2004). It needn’t be taken too seriously, that metropolitan claim of ours to be the “Media Capital of the World”, though it could still be true. Much more important, however, is the 3-days-old news that we New Yorkers have a new mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani.

This forthcoming occupant of the mayoral residence, Gracie Mansion, is seen as a complete opposite to our current occupant of the White House. Mamdani, unlike Trump, is not Caucasian. He’s of South Asian ancestry of course – and famously he’s a Muslim.  He’s a democratic socialist who won on the Democrats’ party ticket; that’s compared with the would-be autocrat who leads the Republican Party – and who incidentally condemned Mamdani during the campaign as a “Communist.”  The mayor-elect, again unlike Trump, has no track record in an executive, administrative position, having instead previously served purely as a State Assembly-member. And not the least significant element in their many differences, is that he is half the President’s age – no, less than half, at thirty-four versus Trump who turns eighty next spring.

But Mamdani’s victory, gained by relentlessly focusing his campaign on making life more affordable, has certainly galvanized and cheered Democrats – much more, it has to be said, the party’s progressive wing than its centrists. But Democrats right across the spectrum also won other races, gaining for instance governorships in New Jersey and Virginia – with incidentally, in that latter state, the winner being its first-ever female governor.

One detail about Mamdani’s campaigning style in New York may be especially interesting to note: his phalanxes of volunteer canvassers who went knocking on doors throughout New York’s five boroughs were given a firm instruction. They were urged not to attempt arguing with voters into any change of mind if they didn’t support the candidate. Instead, their working motto went like this: “Your job is to leave them thinking Zohran’s people are classy.”

THE ANTI-ZOHRAN MAMDANI INSULTS that Trump hurled at him (including of course that term “Communist” (a piece of political imprecision that borders on the comical) came from a presidential position that is far from towering. Historically, almost all off-year elections have naturally brought a falling-off in enthusiasm for the party in power- in our current case a trifecta of power that includes both chambers of Congress as well as the Presidency). But Trump’s disapproval ratings now as his first year in office has unfolded are quite striking. Not least because they exceed even his loss of popularity at the point when he was thrown out of office back in 2020.

Global pollsters IPSOS, retained by ABC News & Washington Post

The latest Ipsos poll, conducted for the Washington Post and ABC News has found that overall 59 percent of Americans disapprove of the way Trump is doing his job -- while just 41 percent say they approve. If we step aside for a moment from the strong partisan divide between Democratic and Republican loyalists – we find that among people who vote Independent, Trump’s disapproval mark is at nearly 70 percent, with his positive approval rating slumping to just 30 percent.

For what it’s worth, and to be a bit parochial again for a moment, among the city electorate that gave Mamdani victory here in this decidedly Democrat stronghold … the numbers were inevitably extra-dramatic – they amounted to what pollsters call for shorthand a net approval rating of Minus 32. Such math is created whenever a politician’s disapproval rating is higher than their approval number. But Minus Thirty-Two is quite remarkable – though again I’ll emphasize that’s only in New York.

Mamdani has frankly reveled in being what he calls “Trump’s worst nightmare.” And I don’t know how “classy” it might be, but his direct shout-out to the President during his victory speech was certainly memorable if not entirely decorous: “So, Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: Turn the volume up!”  And from Trump himself, on his social media site, there came this battle-threatening retort, in all-caps, of course: “… AND SO IT BEGINS!" 

MOVING ON FROM THE BASIC numbers game that characterizes both opinion polling and actual elections, probing the qualitative matter of just why voters might approve or disapprove of any leader is notoriously difficult. But pollsters do keep trying, and Ispos found that one over-riding reason clearly does apply. Their polling found 64 percent of Americans in general decrying Trump for going too far in “trying to expand the power of the presidency.”

Clear majorities specify the issues on which they say Trump is going too far. They are … in laying off government employees as he cuts the size of the federal workforce (and recently has taken advantage of the lengthening Government shutdown to do even more cutting)  … in deploying the National Guard to patrol American cities … and in trying to control the way our colleges and universities operate. That “going too far” notion comes up, intriguingly now, even among Trump supporters. The Gallup organization reports that while nearly 90% of Republicans supported his deportation policy when he first took office this second time around, that number has dropped to less than 50 per cent as the year unfolded and his measures took practical effect.

Gallup says that same shift is reflected across all partisan loyalties among Americans, and the Pew Research Center reports that more than half of the population in general is specific about one immigrant-related practice in particular – 54% have said they disapprove of the increasing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids on people’s workplaces.

And then there is perhaps the most downright fundamental, decision-making issue for many, probably for most Americans – the cost of living. Trump promised, on his way to the White House last year, to swiftly bring down rising prices. Well gasoline prices have declined. But most other costs, including groceries and housing especially, have not declined significantly. According to a broad range of surveys conducted in the last week of last month, very nearly 60 percent of the population — of whatever political persuasion — assigns to Trump either a “great deal” or a “good amount” of blame for the current rate of inflation.

But even given all this growing unpopularity, this president is in all probability going to be with us for the next three years – even if, as a few probably over-optimistic Democrats believe after this week’s results, the Congress might experience in 2026’s elections some revival in its ability to impose real checks and balances upon Trump.

Just how far other elements of Trump’s rule might be losing him favor, even among previous supporters, is hard to judge. So The New York Times chose this election-week to present (with several evocative and somewhat lavishly presented illustrations) what it calls a warning – giving us a litany that the paper’s editorial board describes as “chilling,” The litany amounts to twelve instances, labeled Markers of Democratic Erosion – each of them an indicator of increasingly dictatorial or even totalitarian rule exercised by Trump.

One such instance is headlined “AN AUTHORITARIAN STIFLES DISSENT AND SPEECH. TRUMP HAS STARTED TO.” And the queasy-making illustration for this “marker” was a snatch of black-and-white surveillance video showing two masked and hooded men (suggestive of ICE agents, perhaps?) accosting and arresting a woman in the street. I do wish the actions being captured on this video had been more clearly sourced and explained by the litany’s authors. 

The other eleven instances were given headlines like  … “AN AUTHORITARIAN PERSECUTES POLITICAL OPPONENTS. TRUMP HAS”  … and also:  “AN AUTHORITARIAN DEFIES THE COURTS. TRUMP HAS STARTED TO.  Plus, later: “AN AUTHORITARIAN VILIFIES MARGINALIZED GROUPS. TRUMP HAS.” You get the idea. And all-in-all it’s a cogent case that the article makes – but. as I say, the Times could certainly have been more rigorous and informative in its use of imagery.

The prospects of serious restraints being put on such slippage away from democracy have been (somewhat) increased this week. Substantial redistricting to the benefit of Democrats is now definitely in prospect in California, after Tuesday’s vote. This may counter the likely influx of more Republican US Congressmembers from Texas, thanks to that state obeying Trump’s demand for redistricting – while of course other ‘red states,’ North Carolina, Missouri and Ohio will be following suit. But it’s a long time from now (my one-whole-year theme once again!) before we reach the midterms … and we are very far from any guarantee that the pendulum will in the event swing the Democrats’ way.

So … as I borrow a phrase from Scottish and Irish commentators of a previous century,Thomas Carlyle and Edmund Burke … I have to conclude that it will be left to our so-called “Fourth Estate,” the much-maligned media themselves to step up their game in the necessary public calling-out of this presidency’s anti-democratic actions.