The more Trump reveals himself, the stronger the voter backlash against him grows
Opinion by Robert Reich
• 1h•
13 min read
Last Friday’s jobs report showed employers adding 151,000 jobs in February — half as many as in November and December. Leisure and hospitality jobs have declined in the past two months, suggesting that consumers are pulling back on discretionary spending.
The labor force participation rate also fell 0.2 percentage points, to 62.4 percent, mostly due to declining employment among men. The number of workers employed part-time who wanted but couldn’t get full-time work increased by 460,000 to 4.9 million, the most since spring 2021.
CEOs’ assessment of American business conditions is the lowest since the spring of 2020.
The New York Times monthly consumer survey finds households feeling gloomy about their year-ahead financial situations.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported Monday that Americans are increasingly worried about the state of their finances. The perceived probability of missing a minimum debt payment over the next three months
climbed to its highest level since April 2020, when the economy was in a Covid-19-related freefall.
The consequence of all this for Trump’s political support? It’s tanking. In the
latest Emerson national poll, 46 percent of voters say his policies are making the economy worse rather than better, while 28 percent say the opposite (the rest had no opinion).
In a new
CNN/SSRS poll, almost three-quarters of Americans view the current economic conditions in the U.S. as poor, 51 percent of the public say they think Trump’s policies have worsened economic conditions, and just 28 percent say that his policies have improved things.
In the same poll, the share of Americans saying they expect the economy to be in bad shape a year from now is up 7 points since January, just before Trump took office.
Fifty-five percent of Americans surveyed say they fear Trump’s cuts to federal programs will negatively affect the economy, and just over 50 percent say that they will negatively affect their own families or local communities.
In a new
YouGov poll, 48 percent of Americans think the economy is getting worse, up from 37 percent at the start of Trump's second term. Forty-seven percent expect higher inflation in six months — more than twice the share six months ago.
In the latest Quinnipiac poll, 54 percent disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy; only 41 percent approve.
In a new
CNN poll, 56 percent of voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy — higher than at any point during his first term. In addition, 61 percent disapprove of tariffs.
I don’t have huge trust in polls but when all major polls show the same thing, there’s reason to believe them.
Musk continues to claim big savings from his DOGE effort to take a chainsaw to government. But so far, the actual savings have proven to be tiny.
Soon there will be no way to tell, because Musk and DOGE have just stopped providing identifying details about the cuts — so there’s no way to fact-check them. Not only is this a major step backward from Musk’s promise that he’d be “maximally transparent,” but also it makes his claims of savings nothing but unverifiable propaganda.
DOGE has refused to answer Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests from journalists and watchdog groups. On Monday, though, a federal judge ruled that DOGE is likely subject to the FOIA — a win for journalists, watchdogs, and researchers who have demanded greater transparency. On Thursday, another judge
ordered Musk and DOGE to turn over records and answer questions in response to a legal complaint filed by Democratic state attorneys general.
Meanwhile, Musk’s growing political power and his shift to the political hard right are damaging his businesses.
Consumers are boycotting Tesla. More than a dozen violent or destructive acts have been directed at Tesla facilities. Tesla’s stock has fallen by more than 35 percent since Trump’s inauguration; it’s down 50 percent since December.
In Germany, sales of Teslas plummeted 76 percent in February compared with a year earlier, according to figures released Wednesday.
Antipathy to Musk is also denting sales of his Starlink satellite internet business.
Musk raised alarms this past weekend when he wrote on X that Ukraine’s front line “
would collapse” against Russian forces if Starlink were shut off.
Radoslaw Sikorski, Poland’s foreign minister, suggested that his country “will be forced to
look for other suppliers” if Starlink is “unreliable.” Musk later told Sikorski to “
be quiet, small man.”
Andrius Kubilius, the European Union commissioner overseeing defense and space, talked of quickly replacing Starlink if necessary.
Italy is having
second thoughts about awarding a $1.6 billion contract to Starlink.
Over the past week, shares in Eutelsat — the French rival to Starlink — have more than tripled.
It’s also become apparent this week that Trump is, ironically, the great unifier of Europe. Trump’s policies have helped leaders who were struggling with stagnant economies and rightwing opponents. Facing down American tariffs and drawing together to confront an ally that is behaving more like an adversary has proved to be good politics.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s whirlwind of diplomacy — trying to marshal a European peacekeeping force for Ukraine while also working to salvage the alliance with Washington — has won him praise across Britain’s political spectrum. Starmer’s
poll numbers have bounced back from what was a dismal first six months in government.
In Mexico, President Claudia Sheinbaum has won praise and stratospheric poll numbers for her coolheaded handling of Trump’s tariffs. Mark Carney, a former central banker, was catapulted to the leadership of Canada’s Liberal Party with 86 percent of the vote on the belief that he can manage a trade war with the United States.
Carney’s party, which lagged the Conservatives by double digits under the premiership of Justin Trudeau, has recently closed the gap, putting the Liberals within striking distance of a victory in an election that Carney is expected to call soon. The Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, has struggled to regain momentum, and Liberals have been quick to paint him as a Canadian Trump.
Most Americans don’t care terribly much that government workers are being axed, but they
do care about government services being axed. They’re about to feel those effects very soon. This is also cause for modest optimism because the sooner most people feel those effects, the stronger will be the backlash against the Trump regime. Consider, for example:
— Weather. The National Weather Service produces lifesaving forecasts, but Trump is cutting 20 percent of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — hobbling weather forecasts.
— Food stamps. Millions of poor families, many in red states, rely on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance — food stamps — to have enough to eat. The Trump regime is making substantial cuts and wants states to make up the difference. Most red states cannot.
— Veterans benefits. Over 9 million veterans depend on benefits from the Veterans Administration. But Trump’s cuts at the VA have disrupted medical treatment, ended studies involving experimental treatments, forced some facilities to fire support staff, and created uncertainty amid the mass cancellation of hundreds of VA contracts. The VA serves a constituency courted heavily by Republicans. Veterans, including Republican-leaning vet groups, are fighting back against Trump’s VA cuts.
— Measles. With lower rates of vaccination against measles and a vaccine skeptic at the helm at HHS, we’re witnessing significant measles outbreaks in Texas and New Mexico that have infected more than 250 people — many of them unvaccinated school-age children — and claimed two lives; a flu season that led to record numbers of hospitalizations; and the potential for a bird flu epidemic.
— Tuberculosis. Americans are vulnerable to communicable diseases that exist in other nations, such as tuberculosis, which kills more people worldwide than any other infectious disease. But since Trump ordered the freeze on USAID, the entire system of finding and treating TB has collapsed in dozens of countries across Africa and Asia.
— Education. On Tuesday, Trump and Musk fired half the Education Department, purging people who administer grants and track student achievement across America. Education cuts
will hurt red states in particular: States that voted for Trump last November, on average, use more federal funding in their education apportions than states that voted for former Vice President Harris.
— Social Security. More than 100 million Americans depend on Social Security. But Musk’s DOGE is now combing through Social Security databases to flag suspicious payments. Musk describes Social Security as rife with fraud and repeats the conspiracy theory that Democrats have used it as a “gigantic magnet to attract illegal immigrants and have them stay in the country.” Earlier this month, he referred to Social Security as “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.”
This week, DOGE tried to eliminate Social Security’s phone customer service,
only to scrap the plan after massive public backlash (although DOGE is still cutting phone options for direct deposit changes).
