Piscine Stupidity

 

Despite my aspirations to the contrary, I don't have the memory as short as a goldfish's. What is more, I possess an IQ higher than that of a goldfish. Because of these two factors, I did not vote for Trump in 2024 after witnessing the stunning incompetence,  corruption, and criminality surrounding him over the last decade. However, much to my chagrin, 2024 demonstrated that almost half of voting America possessed a piscine mind when it came to politics, and Trump was re-elected.

Knowing what would soon be unleashed on this formerly great nation, I began chronicling these regressive days out of schadenfreude, if for no other reason. I knew payback was going to be a bitch, and I was looking forward to adopting Sherman's maxim: voters have chosen Trump as a remedy; let us give them all they can stand.

Well, here we are, not even two full years into Trump's second term, and his voters are now rejecting the very remedy they have chosen:

• The Iran Fallout: A Pew Research survey released today shows that 62% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the Iran conflict. Even among Republicans, approval for his handling of the war is at 65%, which is significantly lower than his general job approval rating (78% with the base).  Keep in mind that Trump's war of choice is already less popular than the Vietnam War was at the time of its conclusion!
• The Economy & Inflation: Despite Trump being the "remedy" many voted for to fix costs, only 23% of voters now believe his policies will actually lower inflation. 62% believe his policies are actively driving prices up, and 69% of consumers have switched to private-label brands to cope with the "cash crunch."  
• General Approval: His overall job approval has sunk to 34–40% depending on the pollster, with 56% of likely voters disapproving.

Things have now gotten so bad for this hapless administration that it is beginning to rival President Carter's infamously bad polling.  Check this out:

• The Approval Floor: While Jimmy Carter famously bottomed out at 28% in June 1979 during the energy crisis, some current aggregators (like CNN and FiftyPlusOne) now have Trump’s approval as low as 36%.  
• The "Malaise" Metric: A recent Time Magazine analysis notes that the "crisis of confidence" today is even more structural than Carter's. While 84% of Americans want a focus on the domestic economy, the Trump administration’s 39-day "military adventurism" in Iran has driven his handling of the economy to a dismal 37% approval rating.  

None of this is surprising to me.  What is surprising, though, is how quickly this occurred. I expected to see numbers like this closer to 2028. But even I failed to appreciate the staggering incompetence of Trump and his clown cabinet.  All Trump had to do was keep the American economy on an even keel. That was it. Instead, we left the starting gate with an unprovoked tariff war, proceeded to attack the independence of the Federal Reserve, and launched an unprovoked war against Iran that has pinched off ~20% of the world's oil supply while driving up gas prices for consumers over 46% in 60-odd days, from $2.89 a gallon to $4.39 a gallon as of today (with prices still increasing). Worse, Trump has added insult to injury by dismissing mounting cost-of-living concerns as he promotes fantasy projects, such as his $400 million golden ballroom paid for by diverting infrastructure funds originally slated for rural highway repairs.  If someone were trying to trigger a revolution against the ruling class, Trump could not have been more effective.  

As a result, for the first time, 42% of self-identified Trump voters now say they feel "personally misled" by the administration’s focus on foreign conflict over domestic inflation. But is "misled" the right appellation? No, because Trump never misled them on anything. Here, I will defend the orange god-king because Trump was always Trump: we saw how he governed as president in his first term, and it was an objective failure, one that resulted in over a million dead Americans after he grossly mishandled a pandemic. In the subsequent years, he lost his license to run a NY corporation because of corruption, became a convicted felon as a result of his cover-up of an affair with a pornstar, and, of course, ginned up an insurrection in an attempt to steal an election. Can you really claim to be a victim after witnessing all that and voting for the man anyway? In my opinion, Trump voters weren't "misled" as much as they were active co-conspirators in their own fleecing.  

It takes a truly remarkable level of piscine stupidity to look at that scandalous history and say, 'Give me him because the price of eggs is too high.' Trump voters listened to a snakeoil salesman and drank his remedy to the last drop despite the skull-and-crossbones on the label; now they're deathly ill and feel betrayed. As Sherman would say, the thunderstorm has arrived, and it doesn't care that they've already forgotten why they invited it in. They wanted a disruptor, and they got one. But as they watch their savings evaporate at the pump and their taxes fund golden ballrooms, they are learning the hardest lesson of all: when you choose a wrecking ball as a fix, you don't get to choose which walls stay standing.