Op-Ed | But Does Any of This Matter?

The New York Times headlines tell a familiar story: President Trump’s approval is cratering. Voters think he’s overreaching. Support for his economic and immigration policies is weakening. Independents are abandoning him. Swing voters are disillusioned. Even some Republicans are uneasy. If this were 2012, 2004, or 1996, this would be a political five-alarm fire. Presidential approval ratings, perceptions of executive overreach, public concerns about economic stewardship — these would all be the opening notes of a president’s political collapse.

But we are not living in a normal political era. The rituals of political journalism — the breathless reporting on polls, the confident analyses of political risk, the assumptions that voters’ disapproval will translate into consequences — are still being performed. The question that no one dares ask too loudly is the most important one: does any of this matter?

The simple answer is: not necessarily. The more complicated answer is: not unless the structures that once made public opinion matter are still functional. And there is mounting evidence that they are not.

The New York Times/Siena College poll conducted this month paints a dire portrait for Trump. His approval rating is just 42%, historically low for a president less than 100 days into a new term. Majorities believe he has gone too far on tariffs, immigration, cuts to government programs, and the expansion of executive power. Only a minority believe he empathizes with ordinary people’s problems. A shocking 76% of voters — including a majority of Republicans — say a president should not be able to ignore the Supreme Court. Majorities oppose his ability to deport legal immigrants for political protests or to send citizens to foreign prisons. Voters are also more likely to say Trump’s policies have personally harmed them more than helped.

Under a healthy democratic system, these numbers would spell a sharp electoral rebuke. The president would lose the middle, mobilize opposition, face internal fractures within his party, and eventually either change course or lose power.

But under current conditions, these numbers are less a roadmap to political change than a barometer of public mood — interesting, perhaps, but not necessarily decisive.

Political journalism still runs on a set of assumptions:

• That public opinion matters to politicians because it can determine their survival.
  
• That elections are free, fair, and responsive to shifts in public mood.
  
• That power transitions peacefully if the people demand it.
  
• That the judiciary, Congress, and the press serve as institutional brakes on executive overreach.
  

But each of these assumptions is fraying — if not already broken.

1. Public Opinion vs. Structural Power

Trump has never needed majority approval to win or hold power. He lost the popular vote in 2016. He narrowly won the electoral college with razor-thin margins in a few battleground states. His 2024 victory was, again, an exercise in structural advantage: voter suppression laws, gerrymandered districts, control of key state election apparatuses, and intimidation campaigns all helped tilt the playing field.

In other words, Trumpism is optimized for minority rule. As long as 42% of the country remains fanatically loyal — and enough of the rest are demoralized, disenfranchised, or divided — he can survive.

This makes the standard media narrative — “Trump’s approval is down, so he’s in trouble” — dangerously outdated. Trump doesn’t need 50%+1 to maintain power. He needs a committed base, a demobilized opposition, and control over key levers of government.

2. Elections without Guarantees

The same poll shows that public dissatisfaction with Trump’s power grabs is high. Yet what happens if elections themselves are compromised?

The administration has already moved aggressively to limit voting access, purge voter rolls, centralize election oversight, and blur the lines between legitimate security measures and partisan election interference. If the 2026 midterms or the 2028 presidential election are marred by voter suppression, intimidation, or refusal to honor results — public opinion polling won’t mean much.

You can disapprove of a leader. You can want change. But if you can’t vote freely, if your vote is neutralized, or if outcomes are rejected, your disapproval doesn’t translate into accountability.

3. Institutional Decay

Perhaps the most chilling numbers in the poll concern Trump’s contempt for judicial authority. Only 6% of voters think a president should ignore the Supreme Court — yet Trump has floated precisely that option.

If a president violates court rulings, who enforces the law? If Congress is cowed, and if enough law enforcement agencies are politically loyal, then institutional checks are theoretical at best.

The courts can issue rulings. Congress can pass resolutions. The media can write editorials. But without enforcement mechanisms, they become performative rather than constraining.

4. A Culture of Rule-Breaking

Even among Trump’s supporters, there is a growing cynicism about norms. Nearly 40% of Republicans said in the poll that a president should be allowed to do what he thinks is best — even if it breaks existing rules.

This suggests a profound shift in political culture. Once, democratic norms operated as soft constraints, shaping the behavior of even the most ambitious leaders. Now, the norm is breaking norms.

If the president’s base is indifferent to process and legality — and views rule-breaking as toughness — then declining approval among independents matters less than the intensity of support from the base. As long as that intensity exists, and as long as democratic structures are hollowed out, Trump can continue consolidating power.

The media, understandably, keeps reverting to the rituals of coverage that made sense during healthier eras: poll analysis, approval tracking, comparisons to previous presidents. But in doing so, they risk creating a false sense of normality.

Approval ratings matter in a democracy because they indicate how well a president is fulfilling the people’s will. But in a system tending toward autocracy, they matter mainly as sociological data — not as political determinants.

The danger is that by pretending the old rules still apply, journalists and political elites may lull themselves — and the public — into complacency. The growing unpopularity of Trump’s policies may feel like resistance. It may seem like democracy working. But unless those attitudes can be translated into effective political action under conditions of repression, they will be powerless.

Public opinion still matters. But its power is no longer automatic. In today’s political environment, it must be mobilized, protected, and amplified through structures that are themselves under siege.

Approval ratings can fall. Discontent can rise. Disillusionment can spread. But unless elections are free, courts are respected, Congress asserts its role, and civil society organizes to resist authoritarianism, polling numbers will not, by themselves, save democracy.

We are not simply fighting over who wins the next election. We are fighting over whether elections themselves will retain their meaning — and whether public opinion will retain its force.

In that light, the real question isn’t “How unpopular is Trump becoming?” It’s “Can unpopularity still translate into power?”

And right now, the answer is frighteningly uncertain.

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