We must move forward towards our great democracy
Frank Islam
In 2020, as Donald Trump neared the end of his first term in office, we thought that there would never be a worse president than Trump and that he would never be re-elected. We were wrong on both counts. Trump was re- elected. And in the first 100 days of his 2nd term in 2025, he has proven to be far worse than he was in his first term. During his first term, even as he failed to provide leadership in the fight against COVID, Trump compared himself to a “wartime president.” In this second term, he has not referred to himself to a wartime president but through the actions of his administration President Trump has unofficially declared war on our American democracy and many Americans.
This war has created a state of shock and awe for the majority of American citizens. The extent of the damage done and the effect on the perceptions of those citizens has been documented in poll after poll conducted close to the Trump’s first 100 days marker.
We presented some of the findings from a Washington Post-ABC-Ipsos poll in our blog preceding this one. The topline result from that poll was that of those surveyed, only 39% approved, while 55% disapproved, of “the way Donald Trump is handling his job as President.”
Trump received negative marks of “disapprove” on all seven issues surveyed in this poll, with disapproval ratings ranging from a low of 53% to a high of 67%. The poll also showed that “about two-thirds of Americans say the Trump administration is trying to avoid complying with court orders.”
Trump’s numbers are exceedingly bad. In fact, his approval ratings are “lower than any president’s since polls began” – which was seventy years ago, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt was president.
Given the polling results, one might assume that Trump would be in considerable political trouble because of his poor performance, and the Democratic Party could be positioned for future success. That is not the case.
The same Post-ABC-Ipsos poll found that 39% thought that Trump was “in touch with the needs of most people in the United States today.” That’s dismal, but the Democratic Party scored much worse in its rating than Trump, with only 30% of the respondents saying that it was “in touch.”
That low rating is not surprising given the Democrats defeat in the 2024 presidential election due to its being out of touch with the working class, and its wandering about rather aimlessly since then. The last month of 2024 and the first quarter of 2025 was a relatively disconnected one, with Democrats in search of a focus, a message, and a united voice.
The past several months has definitely been a bad news period for the Democratic Party. The good news is that over the past month or so, some Democratic politicians have started to fight back, to speak out, and are being heard. They include: Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Chris Van Hollen, and J.B. Pritzker.
With a well-constructed plan and ardent citizen advocates and supporters, renewing America will not be easy. The plan itself is merely a starting and reference point, to be adjusted and updated based upon the progress made and changing conditions. Success in renewing American requires committed citizens with the principles, patience and persistence to persevere.
With that in mind, we close with the following comments from President Dwight D. Eisenhower: 1- Plans are worthless. Planning is everything. 2- I believe the only way to protect my own rights is to protect the rights of others. 3- A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.
Eisenhower’s comments are as relevant today as they were during his presidency, and provide us guidelines for moving our great democracy forward toward the more perfect union envisioned by our country’s founders.
