YOU SAY "TRUMP IS A STRONGMAN" AS IF NORMIES THINK THAT'S A GOOD THING

I usually like Greg Sargent of The New Republic, and I like the course of action he's recommending here, but I don't like the way he's framing it, which suggests that he's internalized the thinking of scared D.C. Democrats.

President Donald Trump understands better than anyone else alive that his hold on his supporters—and on plenty of swing voters, too—depends on the mere perception that he’s strong, wins everywhere, always acts boldly, and wields absolute mastery over his eternally feckless, disoriented enemies....

On Friday, however, the new jobs report found that only 22,000 jobs were created in August, far fewer than the 73,000 created in July. A downward revision of the previous month shows 13,000 jobs were lost in June....

All this suggests that Democrats have a fresh opening to undermine the foundation of Trump’s political strength by portraying him as a politically weak, failing, diminished, naked-emperor figure—and some new internal polling conducted by Senate Democrats hints at why.

Let me stop here and say that there's never been any reason to believe that a majority of Americans think Trump is "strong, wins everywhere ... and wields absolute mastery." Trump's poll numbers may not be as low as they should be, but most of the country has always been skeptical of (or utterly repulsed by) Trump. In three elections, he's never won 50% of the vote.

Let's move on to that new polling.

The polling—conducted for the Senate Majority PAC and provided to The New Republic ... finds that 56 percent of likely 2026 midterm voters nationally say Trump’s tariffs are hurting the economy overall, with 44 percent saying they’re hurting a lot. Only 32 percent say they’re helping. Among swing voters—defined as voters who switched in either direction from 2020 to 2024—57 percent say they’re hurting.

What’s more, the poll finds that 48 percent of overall likely 2026 voters say Trump’s tariffs are hurting their own economic situation, versus only 29 percent who say they’re not having any effect and an abysmal 8 percent who say the tariffs are helping their economic prospects.

Also:

... the poll ... sought to gauge how all this is resonating with perceptions of Trump’s strength. It tested two messages, and found this:

Which of the following statements do you agree with more? President Trump’s tariffs make me think he is...

A strong leader taking on tough fights for America: 39 percent

A reckless leader making life more expensive for ordinary Americans: 51 percent

On tariffs, a majority of likely 2026 voters see Trump as a “reckless” leader and not a “strong” one. And among swing voters, that’s 50 to 32, reckless over strong.

Are you surprised? Sargent appears to be:

This is striking, because it was initially reasonable to fear that his tariffs would code as an act of strength, an act of moving to protect, since they ostensibly involve using government power to shield American workers from foreign competition. Voters might have tuned out the details and merely seen Trump as acting decisively to defend Americans from global economic forces in a way his predecessors would not. This is likely why some Democrats have hesitated to take on the tariffs directly.

No, it absolutely wasn't "reasonable to fear that his tariffs would code as an act of strength" -- maybe for one day, the day in April when he first announced the tariffs, but not after that. We saw what happened then: markets crashed, his poll numbers dropped, and Trump was forced into a partial pullback, which led to a demeaning nickname for the president ("TACO," an acronym for "Trump always chickens out"). In the end, Trump imposed significant tariffs -- and they're unpopular. They've been unpopular for months. According to Nate Silver's polling average, Trump has been below 40% approval on trade since late June; he's now at 39.1% approval, 55.3% disapproval. On inflation -- which is being fed by the tariffs -- he's been below 40% since April 2, and is now at 35.1% approval and an astonishing 61.4% disapproval.

Who were the Democrats who needed a new poll in order to persuade themselves that maybe, possibly, potential swing voters might not see Trump as an admiral strongman on trade? Did Greg Sargent think this was open question? America hates Trump's trade policy.

We're regualrly told that Democrats should limit themselves to fights that are popular, as measured by polling. But the polling on trade has been one-sided for months. So why do Washington Democrats still need their spines stiffened? And will they even take "Yes, this is a fight the public supports" for an answer now?

A new CBS poll makes clear that Trump's tariffs become less and less popular every month:

And so does Trump's overall strongman approach to government. Even people who think Trump sincerely wants to help the country don't like how he's going about it:

They know he's trying to be a strongman -- and they don't like it:

Also, in this poll, 68% say the Federal Reserve should act independently of Trump, and 70% say he shouldn't replace Fed members he disagrees with -- another strongman move he's trying to make.

And respondents oppose the National Guard deployment to Washington by a 57%-43% margin. They oppose National Guard deployments to other cities by a 58%-42% margin. They'd oppose a Guard deployment to where they live by a 61%-39% margin.

Normal Americans don't want a strongman president. D.C. Democrats shouldn't require any more polls -- the polls we already have make this overwhelmingly clear. If Democrats in Washington fail to express opposition to Trump's strongman rule, it's because they don't want to accept the polling evidence. In other words, it's because they simply don't want to fight.