There are two distinct and clear things happening in American politics today that at first blush appear to be in direct conflict, President Donald Trump has had the best six months of any president in recent memory, and he is losing support in the polls.
How can this be?
In fact, the way to reconcile Trump’s signature successes with his drop in approval is to understand that the president has expended an enormous amount of political capital, sacrificing support today, in the hope of good results tomorrow.
The achievements of the Trump administration are truly breathtaking when taken as a whole, starting with his central campaign promise, to shut down the southern border.
In a funny way, Trump was too successful on the border for his own political good. Had he cut the number of entries in half by now, it would still have been a positive story for the president, but he brought it to zero, so the issue is all but gone and forgotten, and nobody is getting any credit for it.
Then we have the passage of the ‘big, beautiful bill, the largest tax cut in history packed with big political winners like no tax on overtime and tips, and passed by a tiny GOP majority in Congress.
While that was going on, Trump also attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities, badly damaging them and setting our geopolitical foe’s weapons program back years in a bold and perfectly executed mission.
Above were listed 5 major accomplishments. There are, to be sure, many voters who love all five, but there are also voters who like 3 or 4 but not the others, and in approval polling the stuff people don’t like is louder than stuff they do.
Two weeks ago on a trip to Texas, I reported on these warning signs, especially around the deportations of illegal aliens without any other criminal record that make many Americans, including some Trump supporters, queasy.
There is also an isolationist wing of the MAGA movement that hates the Iran strike, and even though its dire warnings of World War III fizzled like a cap gun in a hard rain, that still dinged the numbers.
Likewise, there are still plenty of individuals and industries that strongly dislike the tariffs, even if the economic sky hasn’t fallen.
