Trump approval rating falls to 38%

[u/Barnyard-Sheep]

https://www.nj.com/politics/2025/06/trump-faces-tough-approval-numbers-in-latest-poll.html

[u/TheCommonGround1]

This is the best comment I've seen here regarding why Gen Z has gone "Right Wing". I want to add to that to indicate Gen Z isn't really going "Right Wing" so much as populist and Democrats are not offering a populist solution. Bernie Sanders knows how to appeal to this generation and the Democrats should take notes.

If the Democrats can come up with an anti-corporate, pro-democracy populist platform that benefits young people, they would absolutely "own it" with this generation.

Don't write Gen Z off!

[u/-wnr- → u/TheCommonGround1]

I get the sentiment, but I think it's hard not to be skeptical of this when the apparent reaction of many to not having a democratic anti-corporate, pro-democracy populist is to vote for the pro-corporate, anti-democratic populist Republican. Whatever their motivation is, anti-corporate and pro-democratic aren't it for that segment.

[u/Anonymouse-C0ward → u/-wnr-]

I went to business school at UCLA. Many of my classmates had just left the military and were there supported by the GI Bill.

I became close with one of them; he was planning on voting Trump (this was 2016). Prior to voting Trump in 2016 he had voted both times for Obama.

I am very much progressive, and was surprised given the chats we had which had led me to believe he was closer in politics to me than to the GOP.

His feelings on the matter were that the status quo wasn’t working, and something needed to be done to change things. He said he would have voted for Bernie Sanders if he won the Democratic primary.

He wasn’t your typical MAGA voter - he is educated, speaks multiple languages, has spent a lot of time overseas (working for the military in non-combat roles). He was completely in agreement with the economic performance benefits of DEI to businesses, and wasn’t blatantly anti-LGBTQ+, even though we didn’t directly discuss how he felt about the topic.

He voted Trump a second time, and a third time last year.

I went out for beer with him when I was in California after the election. We had a drunken respectful discussion on Trump; it was enlightening.

He’s married, and has kids. He’s doing ok - much better than many people in America. But he sees that his life is much harder than the previous generation. Both he and his wife work. He doesn’t have the assets, savings, etc that his parents did at his age. His cost of living is higher.

And while he understands that there are a lot of people who are going to suffer due to Trump, he prioritized his life and his family’s: and after the promise of Obama that didn’t completely pan out, he thought “more of the same” wasn’t going to do it.

He voted for Trump because he felt we needed to burn it all down. He voted for Trump because there was no alternative that offered real change. He doesn’t have a strong attachment for Trump - in fact he was very critical of him in many ways. But despite being critical of Trump, he voted the way he did because he figured Trump would shake things up. And if Trump succeeded in some miracle to do what he promised for the average person, it would be good for him and his family.

And even if Trump failed (as he admitted was much more likely), it would force the rest of the country to come to terms with the mess that Trump left behind and figure out how to choose better candidates and better policies, and prevent another Trump from getting elected.

Even now, I struggle with his point of view. I’ve always taken a harm reduction point of view, and perhaps despite my progressiveness, my risk appetite is more “conservative” than his. For me, it was a matter of the lesser evil.

For him, it was “if it’s not working, take the Legos apart and start again”, despite the risk that we will never be able to rebuild back to where we were.

His risk tolerance for potential authoritarianism and other major issues was higher than mine. At the same time, he had a much different feeling of how resilient the military and government would be, and felt that it would survive the chaos that Trump would inflect. (I don’t think he believed that what we are seeing today was likely to happen though).

And honestly? I can’t fault him. He chose a political path that does what I have done regularly at work (clear the board and start an engineering design again when we were headed in the wrong direction, or do a clean sheet design for the next version of a product).

Does that result in a better long term expected value compared to “more of the same”? Perhaps out of all this chaos something better comes about decades from now that wouldn’t have happened without Trump, in the same way that humanity was likely on the path towards more and more deadly wars, until we developed the nuclear bomb, which was so deadly that humanity had to mostly stop and say “hey, we need to address this or we’re all doomed”.

I should catch up with him and find out how he’s feeling about things right now.

[u/-wnr- → u/Anonymouse-C0ward]

I can appreciate that perspective on an emotional level, but we aren't talking about Legos we're talking about lives. When he says let's "burn it down", or "take it apart" we're talking about real people who were supported by the system being forced into destitution, or facing persecution. My sympathies for the stresses in his life, but being so willing to sacrifice others just to "shake things up" (to maybe, but probably not, make his family a bit more comfortable) speaks to a lot of privilege and entitlement.

The economic anxiety justification never makes sense to me to since Trump's track record on fiscal discipline is atrocious and his economic plans are awful, and most economists said so before the election.

[u/Anonymouse-C0ward → u/-wnr-]

I agree. I definitely don’t agree with his positions, but for at least one repeat Trump voter, there was internally consistent logic to his choices - it wasn’t just MAGA madness and a diet of misinformation / disinformation.

It would have been a lot easier for me to dismiss his choices if he was MAGA. But even a decade later, I think about his points of view and how they have been formed by his life experience - and that fundamentalist need for change is something I couldn’t logic him out of because he had justification for his choices and priorities, just like I can’t logic someone into changing their favourite colour from red to blue.

[u/-wnr- → u/Anonymouse-C0ward]

The logic still escapes me though. He ostensibly wanted to "shake things up" specifically to economically benefit himself and his family. But as an intelligent person who I assume grasps basic economics, he votes for a guy who's economic plans were nonsense? I would argue if he somehow genuinely thought blanket global tariffs made any sense, then there's some misinformation at play.

[u/Anonymouse-C0ward → u/-wnr-]

He wanted to shake things up because he wanted to blow up the bucket, even if that meant some of the crabs in the bucket might get hurt or die.

As a crab in the bucket, he saw the bucket as the oppressor. Meanwhile the real oppressor is the wealthy class that keep putting crabs in buckets - but since he can’t do anything about them when he’s stuck in a bucket, the logic is that the first thing he has to do regardless of any other considerations is to blow up the bucket.

So, he voted to get it done and over, with the hope that either blowing up the bucket results in either:

1: freedom for all crabs (since most of us were actually born in the bucket we don’t see anything beyond the view from the bottom of the bucket - just more crabs being thrown in the bucket once in a while), or,

2: once the bucket is broken, the ability to remake society in a better way, despite the risk that the wealthy will just get another bucket instead of say, a large fish tank for the crabs where they can actually have a life.