Bored of the Trump show, which is falling in popularity
Donald Trump craves an audience. In fact, the former reality TV star boasts about being the king of ratings and, for over a decade, has monopolized the political and social scene of the United States with his show. A spectacle driven by his insatiable ego, which is fueled, in part, by a symbiosis with the media. He needs the screen to exist politically, and the screen needs his drama to maintain the public's interest. But this mutual benefit has had, and continues to have, a price for American democracy.
The show has eroded not only trust in the press, which was already at a low point, but also in the country's political institutions. His constant attacks against journalists, whom he labels as spreading fake news or "enemies of the people," his denunciation of a supposed "deep state," or the doubts he has sown about the legitimacy of elections have taken their toll.
A few days ago, Trump attacked one of the pillars of the United States: the First Amendment to the Constitution, conceived precisely to protect the freedom of religion, speech, and the press against abuses of power. And he surely did so because he believed that, like so many other attacks on the country's democratic foundations, this one would not have many consequences either.
He was wrong. The veto on television networks CNN and MSNBC and the digital publication Politico provoked an immediate reaction from the major networks, including the conservative Fox News, which suspended joint coverage of the president. And a few days later, a federal judge, appointed by Trump himself, issued a temporary order to readmit the banned media outlets while the case is being reviewed.
Beyond a legal battle in which Trump is likely to lose, the episode has made one other thing clear: Americans have started changing the channel. The White House reacted to the media blackout by creating Trump TV, which critics have labeled as propaganda and state television typical of dictatorships. But the channel has crashed spectacularly: it started on September 21 with about 8,000 viewers, but immediately fell below a thousand, and in these last few days, it hasn't even reached five hundred.
It might seem like an anecdote, but it reveals a symptom that polls have been showing for months. Trump's popularity has fallen to 32%, the lowest point of his two terms, even below the 34% he recorded in January 2021, after the Capitol riot, according to Reuters/Ipsos polls. Independents and Hispanics, key to his return to the White House, would now mostly vote Democrat. The disaffection does not stop there and also reaches his own ranks, where support among Republicans has gone from 91% at the beginning of his term to 73%.
A little over a month before the midterm elections, Democrats are leading Republicans by nine points, according to the NBC poll average, and could stage a blue wave comparable, in reverse, to that of the 2010 Tea Party. If they succeed, they will not only regain the House of Representatives but could also conquer the Senate, a milestone that until recently both Democrats and political analysts considered almost impossible.
Renowned historian Jon Meacham explained a few months ago in an interview with NPR that Roy Cohn, Trump's mentor, maintained that from time to time Americans get tired of the show. Cohn had been the right-hand man of Joseph McCarthy, the senator of the anti-communist witch hunt of the fifties. The spectacle of interrogations and accusations by the Republican politician destroyed reputations, but when times changed, it stopped being interesting and McCarthy ended up sidelined. Trump could be facing the same moment.