Over Half of Americans See Trump as a “Dangerous Dictator”
Gee, I wonder why?
In the current flurry of 100-day polling, Axios has the following: Exclusive: Most Americans see Trump as “dangerous dictator,” poll says.
My initial response to seeing the headline was this quote from a recent Atlantic piece (emphasis mine):
We asked the president if his second term felt different from his first. He said it did. “The first time, I had two things to do—run the country and survive; I had all these crooked guys,” he said. “And the second time, I run the country and the world.”
That is one helluva thing for a president to say to a reporter about himself. I am not sure how one explains it away besides some combination of megalomania and authoritarian thinking.
It is not he kind of self-image we should want from a president.
Some may see the topline of the poll and think that, well, 52% is just slightly more than his electoral vote loss, but it is pretty striking, even in as polarized a country as we live in for people to say that the sitting president, regardless of party is a “dangerous dictator.”
Note that 56% of independents agree with the statement, as do 17% of Republicans.
Even if elected officials in the Republican Party are happy to be passive, if not go along with Trump’s current approach to governing, even they will have to pay attention to the possible electoral consequences that loom on the horizon.
The good news amidst all the damage that has been done, and continues to be done, is that Trump is not popular. His overall popularity rating in this survey was only 40%.
The survey found that 83% of Republicans — a relatively low number for Trump — had favorable views of him and his actions, while 35% of independents and 8% of Democrats did.
Even authoritarians need some level of popular support for their actions. So while I will stress that the damage done by the Trump administration is real and continuing, the reaction to his first 100 days is heartening to a degree.
I read this morning that he wants the pollsters to be investigated over his spiraling numbers.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2025/04/28/trump-approval-rating-drops-president-wants-polls-investigation/83331179007/
I also read that the western ports are seeing far fewer Chinese ships, so it seems the pain of Trumpenomics is yet to be felt.
I am beginning to think that the only thing that can tap the brakes on his nonsense are massive, massive midterm losses in both the House and Senate. Winning both should be a priority for the Democrats (and yes, I know that will be a challenge in the Senate).
Trump and his band of
thievesenablers are having fun right now–this demolishing of governmental infrastructure, poking at the courts, getting corporate titans to come-a-callin’, etc. is FUN for them. And the only thing that is going to make this not-fun is if Congress reasserts its Constitutional authority. And they only way they do that is by winning.I agree, it is heartening. If we had a parliamentary system he’d likely be shown the door. Unfortunately we’re stuck with this pig of a man for three and a half more years at least. So how does this discontent have any effect? You’re right that even dictators need a hardcore of support, but Trump has that. A locked-in 60/40 split may put some limits on him, but not many.
The DOJ has abandoned any pretense that it has a mission other than acting as an arm of Trump’s revenge. ICE is a MAGA thug force. Our intel community is run by a Russian tool. Our Defense Department is being torn down by a drunken clown. And god help us if we have a serious health emergency. And Congress? Well, there was that strongly-worded letter.
It may come down to whether the Army will obey the Constitution or the chain of command. The military is 70% White and 82% male. Will our military midwife a dictatorship? Militaries in many, many countries have done just that. And I no longer see any reason to believe we are special.
That 45/55 split—whites who agree that Trump is a dangerous dictator:
-wish we had this poll question on the eve of the election.
-as an off the cuff observation, I wonder if that 55% could fairly be seen as the baseline percentage of whites with an impulse toward authoritarianism, maybe even fascism.
After all, it’s not as if the majority of whites walk around practicing active bigotry. But when their chips appear to be down, the legitimate presence of Others is contingent upon the pleasure of the white population.
I suppose that is just a description of structural bigotry. I have barely put the ingredients on the counter, much less put any of them in the oven. I just found that split striking. Not sure why, yet.
Personally, I find it hard to believe that electoral defeat will be accepted by the Republicans in power. They aren’t accepting what the courts are saying now. Why do we think that a close loss will be honored by the GOP in the future? They elected a guy who attacked Congress after he lost in 2020.
The non bolded quote is equally disturbing: We asked the president if his second term felt different from his first. He said it did. “The first time, I had two things to do—run the country and survive; I had all these crooked guys,” he said. Not only is there the standard projection (crooked guys), but look at the victimization bit about having to survive. It doesn’t occur to Trump that he wouldn’t have so many legal/ethical problems if he wasn’t such an unethical crook who surrounds himself with amoral ideologues, cranks and fellow grifters. More concerning than Trump’s inability to tell the truth is the realization that he believes his own bullshit. It’s too bad the legacy media can’t see that this interview is yet another cry for help.
Unquenchable, intolerance fueled anger combined with raging narcissism, is a deadly cocktail for sustainable civil community.
@Michael Reynolds: I am no Pollyanna about any of this, to be clear. And I would continue to stress that the damage is real and continues.
But I do think it is significant that he is heading into unpopularity this quickly. 40% support is a lot, but the trend line suggests that isn’t he floor. And the closer we get to mid-terms, the more salient it all becomes. I do fear some attempts to screw with the elections.
@Kurtz: I almost commented on the fact that whites are in the positive for him. It is not surprising, but it is also a key area of support that will help undergird his nonsense.
@Modulo Myself: I keep giving this some thought. While I have real criticisms of the decentralized nature of election administration in the US, it does make it hard to easily reject an outcome.
Also: unless there is a willingness to simply state the elections are null and void by fiat, it is harder to steal a legislative election en masse (it is just a huge collective action problem that includes legislators and local officials). I am actually far more concerned that he simply wouldn’t leave in 2029.
@Charley in Cleveland: True.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Yeah, I was telling a friend…they’re going to have build a second White House in 2029 and disconnect the first from Fox and social media.
For me the most interesting indicators.
52% … All Americans .. squares up with my thought that on most issues, including general approval, Trump’s equalibrium is well over 50% negative.
17% … Republicans … 83% of them are okay with this dictator stuff, it’s exactly what they wanted
45% … White … the least surprising
@Daryl:
I’ve been keeping an eye out for reporting on this and am having a tough time finding mainstream reporting on it. Most of what I come across is Substack stuff (like Krugman, so quality) or in what appear to be trade websites (jargon heavy, of unknown quality). I’m starting to think a couple of things are happening:
1. The mainstream press isn’t really covering it because it’s not a pressing sexy issue AND they fundamentally don’t understand it.
2. If I’m understanding what I’m seeing, and it’s an accurate reflection of objective reality, it appears that the magic date is May 4. I believe that’s the date where container arrivals drop off a cliff.
So I went to look and found this one from a couple of days ago that seems scary as hell to me.
It yelled at me not to copy out of their so, meh. Anyway, it seems to me that if things drop off a cliff on May 4, even if there was a deal on May 5, it’ll be impossible to restart shipments right away. There’s going to be a couple of month “bubble” no matter what. Every week that there isn’t a deal, that bubble is going to get longer. And quite a few of Trump’s economic cranks think that’s a good thing.
I agree with @Jen: that the Trump people are having fun right now. But I don’t think it’s going to take until the midterms for them to stop having fun. We all seem to have forgotten how bad the early bit of Covid was economically (I mean, we had lots on our plates to forget). How long do you think people will sit around happy if this summer they can’t find the shit they need/want. Especially since if there’s not enough containers coming into Los Angeles, that means about a week later the trucking layoffs are going to start, then the factories that aren’t paring down now are probably going to start paring down.
Depending on just how things shake out, say June it should be noticeable and the mainstream press will start to find it sexy and may start hammering away at it. How much fun do we think they will be having then?
This all assumes that the DOGE idiots don’t break something, that Trump doesn’t shit his pants on tv, or some Rumsfeldean Unknown Unknowns happen.
Anyway, I think there is a chance that shit hits the fan this summer and bad.
I know that we want Trump to go down far enough in popularity that it will change either his behavior or that of Congress. However, it still looks to me like what we are seeing is that he still has pretty much the same level of support amongst Republicans that he had during his first term. Until we significantly and sustainably break that barrier neither he nor Congress is changing.In this particular case I would note that Republicans are actually OK if he acts as a dictator because he is doing stuff they like for the most part. They might be unsure about tariffs but unless ad until it hurts them a lot economically they wont drop their support. Even then it will take a while as they will mostly blame Dems for a while.
Steve
@Beth:
Figures the felon rapist would find a way to ruin even Star Wars Day…
As to trucking layoffs, not exactly the same but UPS has announced it plans to lay off 20,000 people, as they expect a drop in shipments from Amazon.
Tell me again why it was a good idea to allow massive consolidation in any industries?
on other cheery news -all news must be cheery under a dictatorship- job vacancies in the US fell by 288,000. this against an expected gain of about 20,000
It’s not a mesure of unemployment rate. Vacancies are jobs available. So there are almost 300,000 fewer jobs available today. Good show and all that (forced smile).
As usual, The Simpsons perfectly illustrate almost every point ever made.
double post.
I do not think Trump is a dangerous dictator.
I do think that his power should be limited before he destroys American democracy.
Polling items often irritate me.
@Mimai:
I hope your respite was restful.
You see Trump as more of a John the Baptist figure to a future dictator?
Polling items…The polling questions? How media handle the results? Practices of pollsters? How the general public sees polls?
All of the above?
@al Ameda:
I’d be interested in seeing a rural/suburban/urban breakdown as much as race.
In addition to racism, there’s also a cultural and economic divide. Democrats really haven’t had a serious economic plan aimed at revitalizing rural America, and the Republican plan has been to blame Democrats and brown people.
@Kurtz: Thanks. Twas a work trip. Not at all restful but very productive and invigorating.
It’s the measurement. Dangerous + dictator + power limited. These are three separate items. I agree with the first and last, disagree with the second.
I make this point because I think public opinion polling is important. It should (could) serve an important signaling function. I suppose it does that to some extent, just not in the way we often talk about.
All that is to say: all the above.
I’m dying to see the crosstabs on the 8% of Democrats with “favorable views of Trump and his actions.” There’s some serious WTF cognitive dissonance there… White supremacist Teamsters? Single-issue Hassidim? People in comas? I’m genuinely curious.
@DrDaveT: A certain percentage of them are Republicans who are lying to f*ck with the results. Some are clueless.
@DrDaveT:
The late science fiction(ish) author Orson Scott Card claimed to be a Democrat. When the Supreme Court released either the Windsor or Obergefell decision, Mr. Card said the government should be overthrown in response.
There’s a reason why studies that rely on self-reporting are notoriously unreliable.
@Kathy: Read his book Empire and you will have no doubts about his politics. (Actually, no, don’t read it. It is a terrible book and greatly tainted my view of Card’s work).
@Gustopher:
As would I. The Pew Foundation often does very interesting polls, with good breakdown data.
@Kathy:
I hate learning real world facts about authors. Card has written some brilliant fiction, some of the best of my lifetime. I really didn’t want to learn that he’s a moron in real life.
Gosh, if only we had had a mechanism in place to prevent this monster from being president again. All this could have been avoided. Damn the galactic senate for appointing Trump to the office of the presidency.