Donald Trump is not losing sleep over his approval rating. While a fresh NBC News poll shows his support has cratered to a second-term low of 37 percent, down from 42 percent in December, the president is doing what he does best: flooding social media with cherry-picked alternative statistics to prove everyone else is wrong.
Over the weekend, Trump posted numbers on Truth Social claiming Americans overwhelmingly back Republicans on the economy, inflation, tariffs, and immigration. The figures weren't fabricated, but they were outdated and selectively chosen, apparently lifted from a January Wall Street Journal poll that actually reported voter unhappiness with Trump's economic stewardship.
The cascade of bad news extends beyond poll numbers. Two-thirds of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track. The cost of living continues to climb. Democrats have been outperforming expectations in special elections, raising the prospect of a Democratic-controlled Senate. Infighting has erupted within the MAGA movement over Trump's recently launched war with Iran. And Viktor Orban's defeat in Hungary, despite campaign help from JD Vance, signals Trump's influence abroad may be deteriorating.
But here's what matters more than any of these setbacks: Trump doesn't appear to care. Anthony Scaramucci, who served briefly as White House communications director during Trump's first term, captured this dynamic recently on X. "Does he care about any of this?" Scaramucci wrote. "I would submit to everybody, he does not. He's entered the nihilistic stage of his political career. The polls don't matter. Consequences don't matter. That is the most dangerous version of this man."
History offers one precedent for a president undone by collapsing approval ratings: Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 when his support bottomed out around 24 percent. But Nixon faced institutional pressure and the real prospect of removal. Trump operates in a different ecosystem entirely. His base remains locked in, his party largely refuses to challenge him, and the machinery of accountability that once constrained presidential power has been thoroughly dismantled.
Rather than triggering introspection or humility, poor polling numbers will probably push Trump deeper into vindictiveness and retaliation. A weakened Trump, flailing in the public eye, may also prove counterproductive for Democrats, who risk growing complacent and banking their 2028 comeback solely on the fact that Trump is unpopular. That strategy historically leads to hollow victories: a Democratic president inheriting an unmanageable crisis, stumbling through four years of gridlock, and handing power back to Republicans once the pendulum swings.
The uncomfortable truth is that 37 percent of Americans still approve of Trump despite everything. Despite the cost of living crisis. Despite the wars and the chaos. That baseline of support suggests the problem runs deeper than one polarizing figure. Removing Trump from office does nothing to address the underlying conditions that have made so many voters willing to stand by him regardless of circumstances. Until those fractures in American society are genuinely repaired, the nation will keep cycling through versions of this crisis.
Author James Rodriguez: "Bad polls won't humble Trump or force him out, and Democrats betting on mere opposition will find themselves inheriting a catastrophe they're unprepared to fix."
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