Don't Believe the Hype, Trump's First Moves are Very Unpopular
A new poll shows that voters are not on board with the MAGA agenda.
Trump’s inauguration was a truly surreal event. He took the oath of office in the Rotunda of the same building he sent a mob to destroy just years prior. He was surrounded by a coterie of billionaires including three of the world’s richest man. The CEO of TikTok, an app the U.S. government believes is a tool the Chinese Communist Party, sat next to Trump’s nominee to be Director of National Intelligence.
Amid this bizarre collection of people and unintentionally ironic location, Trump claimed a massive mandate. and proclaimed the beginning of a “Golden Age” for America. Trump made big and specific promises many of which were executive orders he signed within hours of being sworn in. Later in the day, Trump pardoned 1500 January 6th defendants.
This is all part of a specific strategy,
In the lead-up to the inauguration, Trump aides described this flurry of executive actions as a “shock and awe” campaign (perhaps Team Trump could use a primer on how the Iraq War went). The New York Times reported:
The 45th (and soon-to-be 47th) president said the Democrats were damaged, demoralized and disorganized, according to two people in the room. And while he conceded that “sometimes a wounded animal is the most dangerous,” he signaled that he wanted to exploit their weakness. It was time to go big.
Whether it’s his idea for “one big, beautiful bill” to ram through his multitrillion-dollar legislative agenda, his hunger for a deal to end the Russia-Ukraine war (and perhaps fulfill his first-term dream of a Nobel Peace Prize), his desire to acquire Greenland, the Panama Canal and Canada for the United States, or his insistence to an adviser that he will keep signing executive orders on Inauguration Day “until my hand breaks” — Mr. Trump has indicated that he wants to begin his presidency with a demonstration of strength.
The Republicans, his tech oligarch allies, and some in the media are eating it up, but new polling shows that the public is not on board with Trump’s agenda.
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