LEE CARTER: Trump's approval ratings reveal what legacy media refuses to see

Tuesday, Jan. 20 marks 1 twelvemonth since Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office. One twelvemonth of enforcement orders, overseas argumentation shockwaves, migration crackdowns, and a governing benignant that ne'er erstwhile tried to soften its edges.

And for 1 year, the aforesaid header has seemed to beryllium everywhere: Trump is unpopular.

Approval successful the debased 40s. Disapproval successful the mid-50s. The verdict, according to the polling-industrial complex, is clear.

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But 1 twelvemonth in, it’s worthy asking a much uncomfortable question: What if the polls aren’t telling america Trump is failing? What if they’re telling america he’s delivering — and the state is splitting successful response?

Because Trump is not similar different presidents. And that means we’re speechmaking his archetypal twelvemonth done the incorrect lens.

A First Year Without the Usual Pivot

Most presidents walk their archetypal twelvemonth recalibrating. They observe the limits of power. They soften the rhetoric. They explicate wherefore run promises were harder than expected.

They govern successful beige aft campaigning successful bold color. Trump ne'er did that.

He governed precisely arsenic helium campaigned — and dared the state to react.

He promised to get pugnacious connected immigration. He did.

He promised to enactment America first, adjacent if allies bristled. He did.

He promised decisive enactment implicit consensus. He delivered it.

You tin disagree with the choices. Many do. But you cannot credibly reason that helium misrepresented who helium would be.

And that’s wherefore his polling looks truthful strange—and truthful stable—one twelvemonth in.

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According to nationalist polling averages, Trump’s occupation support sits astir 41% to 42%, with disapproval successful the mid-50s. Those numbers predominate headlines. But buried successful the aforesaid information is the statistic that really defines his archetypal year: According to a Wall Street Journal canvass this week, 92% of voters who supported Trump successful 2024 inactive o.k. of the occupation he’s doing.

That is not drift.

That is not erosion.

That is alignment.

Trump didn’t suffer America; helium kept his people.

The Polls Still Measure Performance—But Through Identity

Here’s the displacement that explains everything: The polls perfectly bespeak what Trump is doing. They conscionable don’t bespeak it the mode they utilized to.

In past presidencies, show led to persuasion. A bully system moved numbers up. A situation moved them down. Voters behaved similar jurors, weighing grounds and revising judgment.

Today, voters behave much similar mirrors.

Trump acts. And radical don’t reconsider. They respond arsenic who they already are.

Supporters spot delivery.

Opponents spot confirmation.

The aforesaid enactment produces other conclusions — and the polls grounds the split.

Think of today’s polling similar polarized sunglasses. Everyone sees the aforesaid world — but 1 lens turns it red, the different blue. The lawsuit isn’t hidden. It’s filtered. Trump’s presidency doesn’t alteration minds; it clarifies them.

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That’s wherefore support doesn’t plaything wildly. That’s wherefore scandals don’t illness support. That’s wherefore victories don’t grow it. The state isn’t being persuaded. It’s being sorted — successful effect to Trump doing precisely what helium said helium would do.

Why His Numbers Barely Move

This is wherefore Trump’s support ratings consciousness truthful unsatisfying to everyone.

Critics privation them to awesome collapse.

Supporters privation them to awesome dominance.

Instead, they awesome thing much unsettling: stableness without consensus.

Recent polling suggests Trump’s support has stabilized aft aboriginal dips — not due to the fact that thing is happening, but due to the fact that everything is settling into place. The sides are formed. The reactions are predictable. The state has chosen its lenses.

Trump isn’t chasing approval. He’s holding his line.

And that, 1 twelvemonth in, is the defining diagnostic of his presidency.

A Promise Actually Kept

Here is the happening that makes some sides uncomfortable:

Trump didn’t tally arsenic a unifier and past divide.

He didn’t tally arsenic a reformer and past manage.

He didn’t tally arsenic an outsider and past assimilate.

He ran arsenic a disruptor — and governed arsenic one.

President Donald Trump gestures arsenic helium walks from Marine One aft arriving connected the South Lawn of the White House, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, successful Washington.  (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

That doesn’t marque him right.

It doesn’t marque him wrong.

It makes him consistent.

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And consistency, successful a state this divided, is nary longer a virtuousness everyone tin tolerate. It’s a provocation.

One Year Later

One twelvemonth in, Trump’s support ratings aren’t a informing sign. They’re a receipt. They amusement that helium delivered precisely what helium promised — and that fractional the state can’t basal what was delivered.

In an epoch built connected walk-backs and reversals, Trump did thing voters are told ne'er to expect from politicians: He meant it.

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And connected the one-year day of his presidency, the polls aren’t judging his performance.

They’re measuring America’s discomfort with getting precisely what it voted for.

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