TRUMP'S POLL NUMBERS ARE IRRELEVANT

The Illusion of Polls and the Persistence of Power: America Under Siege

The thoughtless headlines are breathless. “Trump’s Poll Numbers Plummet.” “Approval Slips Below 40%.” “Voter Fatigue Sets In.”
And yet, none of it matters. 

Not to him.

Trump has never governed with the consent of the majority, and he has never cared to. The media clings to polling data as if public disapproval were still a meaningful lever of political consequence. But this is not the game he is playing; it has never been. He does not seek approval; he seeks control.

To Trump, the polls are white noise. His 40% base is intact, fervent, and more radicalized than ever. He does not need more than that. With voter suppression, disinformation, electoral loopholes, and crumbling opposition, that core minority is enough. Enough to regain power. Enough to keep it. Enough to end the American experiment in majority rule.

Despite the mounting warnings, nothing has improved. Project 2025 continues to be implemented in plain sight; its plan to dismantle the civil service, purge dissenters, and remake the federal government into a vehicle of personal loyalty remains unchecked. The machinery of democratic erosion hums along.

Where is the resistance?

Democrats issue press releases. Commentators shake their heads. Activists hold symbolic protests. But where is national mobilization? Where are the boycotts? Where are the millions in the streets, day after day? Where is the moral fire, the public outcry that matches the scale of the crisis?

We are watching, in real time, the normalization of authoritarianism.

Trump’s first 100 days of this phase, call it a soft coup, a slow-motion autocracy, or simply what it is: rule by personal whim, have been wildly successful. He has solidified control of the Republican Party, cowed much of the judiciary, and turned the Department of Justice into a weapon of retribution. And the rest of us? We watch and wait.

There is no real opposition. No unified voice. No strategic resistance on the scale that history demands.

Trump wakes up daily and tests the system to see what else he can get away with. And so far, the answer is anything. Everything.

He believes he will remain in power not because he is loved by all but because he cannot be removed. Unless something drastic changes, the king will remain on his throne unless the opposition finds courage, unity, and a spine.

This is not fearmongering. It is reportage. It is what we predicted. And it is precisely what has come to pass.

If we continue to treat this moment as normal politics, if we pretend that the next election alone will save us, we will wake up one day to find the idea of democracy nothing more than a memory, a footnote, an unkept promise.

And Trump? He’ll still be there. Not because he earned it but because we let him.

William James Spriggs