America Is Sick of Trump, but Not of His Cruelty

The polls ahead of the midterms read like a demolition job for Donald Trump and his party. His approval has fallen into the low 30s, driven above all by his own people. Republican approval used to be in the high 80s or low 90s. Now it stands at around 70 percent. Behind that are prices and the cost of living, along with a leadership that no longer convinces anyone. A majority sees the election as a referendum on Trump, even though his name is not on the ballot, and independents see it most clearly. In the race for Congress, Democrats lead by 12 points among registered voters and 11 among likely voters, depending on the poll.

The overall picture is accordingly brutal: 33 percent approval, 63 percent disapproval. That works out to a net rating of about minus 30 points and is the worst result since this polling series began in May 2025. For the first time, Trump is below 35 percent approval, and for the first time above 62 percent disapproval. In August, his net rating was still minus 24. Even more serious is the collapse on his most important everyday issue: on prices and inflation, Trump is now at minus 54, with only 21 percent approving and 75 percent disapproving. The poll does not show one bad month. It shows a president whose approval is hitting new lows both overall and on one of the issues voters care about most.

For context: the blue wave of 2018 gave Democrats an 8.6-point nationwide advantage in the House. In 2008 it was 10.6, under a Republican president about as popular as Trump, in the middle of the Great Recession and a war in Iraq coming apart at the seams. Back then, Democrats won 257 seats to 178. There is something disturbing buried in all the good news. Trump’s most brutal policies remain popular with his base, and they have appeal across the rest of the country too. On deportations, polls give Republicans a 1-point advantage, on crime and public safety 5. On border security, it is 11. Support for the most violent things this administration has to offer.

This graphic is especially uncomfortable for Trump because it does not ask about him personally. It asks which party Americans trust more on specific problems. Democrats lead on 10 of 13 issues. On health care, the advantage is 25 points, on government funding and social programs 21, on education 17. Even on prices and inflation, the most important problem for many Americans, Democrats now lead Republicans by 14 points. On jobs and the economy it is 11 points, on foreign policy 8. Even on immigration, long a clear Republican strength, the poll is basically even, with Democrats holding a tiny edge. Republicans retain clear advantages only on border security, crime and deportations. Even worse for Trump: when people are asked about their own single most important problem, Democrats lead 45 to 35.

What that means can be seen in one agency. Trump has built a federal police force that answers to no one and operates in the shadows. It grabs people based on the color of their skin or the language they speak. Oversight is practically nonexistent. People die in its detention centers, at least 57 during Trump’s second term according to the civil rights organization ACLU, and the now-closed Alligator Alcatraz had torture rooms. U.S. citizens and people with legal status are also caught up in it, including cases ending in serious injuries and deaths.

This graphic shows where Trump’s September collapse came from: his own ranks. Among Republicans and Republican-leaning voters, his net rating fell from +54 to +43 in a single month. That is the lowest level in this polling series. Almost nothing changed among Democrats, and barely anything changed among independents. The drop is happening exactly where Trump normally has his safest support. It becomes even clearer among his own 2024 voters: the share who strongly approve of him fell from 53 percent in May 2025 to 35 percent. Trump is not suddenly losing his opponents here. He is losing enthusiasm among people who voted for him.

ICE shot and killed 2 Americans who posed no threat. Alex Pretti and Renee Good were killed by officers and were initially branded domestic terrorists. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo also died at the hands of ICE, shot during a traffic stop in Houston. The agency said he had tried to run over an officer, while several witnesses contradicted that account. When its people kill indiscriminately, the administration keeps states from conducting their own investigations. What is disturbing is that half the population can live with it, and 77 percent of Republicans explicitly approve of it. 61 percent of them do not want a path to citizenship. They want everyone deported, including those who came to the country as children. For these people, deportation to countries whose language they do not speak and where they know no one is, in practical terms, a death sentence. Some who were here legally kill themselves rather than go back.

On security, voters still trust Republicans more. The crimes this party goes after are of a particular kind. A trans person going for hormone therapy or using a bathroom becomes a case. So does getting a new passport or playing T-ball in kindergarten. What the same party looks past is on another level entirely. It lets white-collar criminals walk, and the child molester too, as long as he donates money or owns an island. Bribery in office and an attempted coup against their own government are not on the list.

The majority has adopted the slogans against trans people, and even Democrats are slowly joining in. For Republicans, the issue is number 1 in the campaign because it gets them votes. In Congress and in the states, they increasingly portray trans people as dangerous, mentally ill degenerates who should be locked away against their will. When Senator Tuberville mocked “furry pilots,” the internet laughed, but missed the fact that the joke was part of a 20-minute tirade that ended with a call for forced institutionalization. Demands like that have a history. Between 1933 and 1945 in Germany, it was called Aktion T4, the institutionalization and murder of mentally ill and disabled people.

The second pillar of Republican “law and order” is taking on water. In the past, a Navy or Coast Guard helicopter would disable a suspected boat with 1 shot per engine. Then a team would board and arrest the people on it. Today, the U.S. military has killed more than 230 people on boats that were merely suspected of carrying drugs. More Americans approve than disapprove, 48 percent to 41, and among Republicans it is 83. On the high seas, the United States is judge and executioner rolled into one, possibly committing a crime against humanity according to international law experts. A majority is fine with it, even though the attacks have measurably failed to reduce the drug supply. Cruelty as a public display, the government knows it, and far too much of the audience likes it.

All of this holds as long as everyday life stays cheap. Many Americans voted for brutality and arbitrary power as long as a gallon of gas stayed under 3 dollars and a pound of ground beef under 4. Trump himself tore up that bargain, with the attack on Iran that threw energy markets into turmoil and with one of the dumbest trade wars in history against Canada, which made everything more expensive. The party campaigns on 2 promises, brutality against those it declares subhuman, and tax giveaways for business. It swears up and down that the latter will raise living standards. They do not. Even Republicans are not getting ahead financially, and that is exactly what is eating away at Trump’s support among them. The share of Republicans who say their economic situation is better than it was a year ago fell from 72 percent in January to 29 percent in September.

What you see here is not just dissatisfaction, but how deep it now runs. Around 50 percent of adults strongly disapprove of Trump’s performance in office, while only about 15 to 16 percent strongly approve. That puts the gap at around 35 points, the largest in this polling series. In spring 2025, the gap was still significantly smaller. The crucial point: strong disapproval is growing while committed approval is shrinking. For Trump, that means his opponents are not only more numerous, they now express their rejection of him far more strongly than his supporters express their approval.

That makes many Americans look like the average Russian, at peace with fascism as long as their own bank account keeps growing. Except fascism pays out to the rich while the masses get poorer. It promises prosperity to the master race and delivers it to the elites and their favorites. The Nazis cut taxes and smashed the unions, privatized large parts of industry, and the upper class got richer. 20 percent of small businesses went under in the process. Wages were frozen, while the workweek grew by 20 percent within a few years. What fascism actually hands out is misery for the outcasts, no bread and no circuses. The question is when the MAGA base will understand how the bill works. This party willingly tortures the people it tells you to hate. But there are only so many seats at the oligarchs’ table, and sooner or later everyone else ends up on the menu.