Do not make a consolation of America's Trump counter -reactions

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At 39 percent, Donald Trump has had the lowest approval rate after 100 days of a US president since World War II. There are two types of people in the world. There are those who consider this terrible number as history, and those who cannot believe that they are so high. The second group has things better under control.

Too much is made against Trump by the public counter reaction. Only 6 percent of those who secured him last November regretted this. (And these few have to be weighed against the 3 percent of the Kamala Harris voters who say the same about their choice.) This is after the tariffs, the ambush of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, the transportation of the Tesla car at the driveway of the White House. As a reference, Trump had reviews almost eight years ago and headed Joe Biden before winning in 2024.

Even if the turn against Trump was as determined as they were invoiced, the message would be – what? Trample the constitution, but don't you dare to misunderstand the economy? And there is liberal consolation in it, right? Trump, who has been attacked since 2014, kept the help back to secure his help to dig dirt on bidges. For his second, he tried to overthrow the result of a presidential election, in the course of which people died. The voters decided last November that such actions do not disqualify. If the reversal of the stock market is now pushing over the edge, it is fair enough, but let us contain the moral cheers.

The true teaching of surveys is one that we shouldn't need. A very large minority of voters is more or less unreachable. This is not a electoral problem for the Democrats who can win without them, but it is a constitutional law for the United States. It is difficult to know how a republic should survive such a large caucus that is loyal to her partisan team – actually a man – a rule, a principle or an institution of the state.

Why are people so anchored? Why is Trump's core support almost as firm as literally basic rock? If you believe that big problems have to have big causes, there is one that stands out. For some voters, the political tribe offers the feeling of belonging that the religious belonging once did before the number of members of the church in the United States decreased. The compassion, the structure, is so nice to you that you override all ethical concerns, just as a worshiper did not say a word against an obvious low-life from a pastor. The left is not that different.

Or the answer can be fiddling than that. An effect of social media gets too little attention. In the past, a citizen who later regretted a political perspective that she later regretted, like Homer Simpson, in this hedge. This is because almost nobody (including themselves) would remember their initial attitude. Now there is probably a digital trail in the form of a tweet, Facebook post or WhatsApp message.

As the children say, we have the “receipts”. And so the social costs for the change, the friction, are more than it was. We are now all columnists, even if the readers are only friends, family and colleagues.

In 2003 a majority supported, not just a plurality of British the Iraq war according to YouGov. Over a decade later, the country “reminded” of a different perspective. Nowadays you would find someone who confessed to change with the hunter against Bambi's mother than to support the invasion. It is difficult to know whether this patent self-fuse should be horrified or should feel nostalgic for a time when people were able to get in and out of points of view without leaving a stressful deficit.

In both cases, the effect of the effect, regardless of whether the cause is technically or a hunger for group membership in an atomized world. A large proportion of those who turned to Maga a decade ago will be there to the end. The counter -reaction against Trump in the past few weeks has been large enough to encourage the Democrats before the intermediate elections in 2026. It is not so big that it justifies part of the greater optimism in the republic. Even if a tariff-induced recession of Trump's rating fully falsifies, this is not the same as a popular uprising to defend the constitution. And do not be surprised if many voters who hated the economic pain under bidding have shaken up much worse under Trump from price -conscious unrestrictiveness.

America may have more than most, but there are unavailable voters in all democracies. Since Nigel Farage's Reform UK won the local elections last week, well-meaning Grandes in Great Britain have written 10-point plans to win his supporters, including the improvement in economic growth because nobody has yet thought of it. And look, there are semi-commanded Farage fans who can actually be lured back with a slightly better government and other practical offers. But at some point, liberals have to accept that Western democracies now house a large minority of voters who are lost for them indefinitely.

A start could be to put the popular uprising against Trump in a perspective. In a survey by Emerson College, a group that had selected him in November with 1.2 percentage points via Harris would now only do this by 0.8 percentage points. It is grateful for small graces, and there is.

janan.ganesh@ft.com