This week, Donald Trump’s poll numbers didn’t just drop; they took a nosedive. The man once crowned king of cable news is now looking more like a fallen monarch hosting Great Gatsby-themed parties while America burns. And the people? They’re done and fed up. Sick of the show, and ready to flip the channel.
In just the past few weeks, Trump’s favorability ratings have tanked, and not without reason. Let’s unpack the blood and glitter behind this political free fall.
Tariffs, Tantrums, and Tinfoil Crowns
First came the tariffs. Like a kid with a Sharpie and no supervision, Trump scribbled new taxes all over international trade. Economists screamed. Prices spiked. And farmers, truckers, and everyday Americans found themselves footing the bill for yet another impulsive “deal” gone wrong. Even some in the GOP started clutching their pearls.
His approval among Independents cratered to just 29%, with the biggest complaints, as expected, focused on the economy. Seventy-three percent of Americans now disapprove of his handling of the budget, and 68% say his economic leadership is a disaster. That’s not just a “bad week”; that’s political hemorrhaging.
Gatsby’s Ghost at Mar-a-Lago
While homelessness rises and families struggle to afford groceries, Trump threw a decadent Mar-a-Lago soirée, drenched in 1920s opulence and 2025 tone-deafness. Think champagne towers, sequins, and jazz, all while real Americans suffer. The “Let them eat caviar” energy wasn’t lost on voters.
And those optics? They’re brutal. Americans are watching a man in a golden palace toast himself while cities are begging for food security and housing support. The backlash? Immediate, fierce, and unforgettable.
And while he’s preening at Mar-a-Lago, he’s flinging lies like confetti. Bubba bear Trump even referred to Mamdani — the new mayor of New York — as a “communist,” and the right-wing MAGA press repeated it word-for-word like brainless parrots. The truth? The mayor has zero history of communism. He is a socialist democrat, which, by the way, is standard politics in most European democracies. But Trump doesn’t sell accuracy. He sells fear. And his media machine re-sprays the aerosol of panic on demand! Guess who partied and campaigned on Halloween night? The newly elected Muslim mayor, who was out all night at the gay bars, dancing and creating relationships with his new constituents.
Border Patrol or Costume Party?
If that wasn’t enough, images of Trump’s border enforcement squads, some masked, uniformed like Stormtroopers, and marching without public transparency, lit up the news cycle. Critics from both sides of the aisle called it dystopian cosplay, while human rights advocates condemned the escalation as morally bankrupt.
Even 15% of Republicans have now jumped off the MAGA train, citing authoritarian vibes and chaos fatigue. And from the left? The disdain is absolute: 97% of Democrats disapprove of everything from his immigration policies to his economic “vision.”
Final Act or Just Intermission?
This isn’t a pivot. It’s a meltdown, and Trump’s numbers are bleeding like a Shakespearean tragedy written by Quentin Tarantino.
Yet amid the carnage, he still holds court with sycophants whispering sweet delusions into his ear. The polls? “Fake news,” he says. The reality? The American people, Republicans, Independents, and Democrats alike, are starting to march in a different direction. One that doesn’t involve Gatsby gowns, golden toilets, or Stormtroopers at the gate.
Because this week, and this cannot be overstated, Trump got his butt trounced by Democrats coast to coast. Americans walked into ballot boxes across this country and said something extremely simple: He is not a king. And the results seem to scream it louder than any pundit ever could.
And now, one more truth needs to be said out loud: if gerrymandering continues, Republicans will forever regret engineering racist map-rigging designed originally to block Black Americans from governing cities and counties where they were the majority. This writer says: the solution is plain. Voting districts should be based on counties. Period. No elastic borders and no more ornamental lines drawn by cowards in back rooms. We will show up.
George Freeman,
Presiding Chaplain Universal Life Church Monastery
