“Not just courageous” but “actually fearless” said Doug Burgum. The “first 100 days has far exceeded that of any other presidency in this country ever,” said Pam Bondi. “Most” of the presidents whose portraits adorn the Oval Office – which include George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan – were mere “placeholders” who were not “men of action”, mused JD Vance.
Before the TV cameras on Wednesday, top cabinet officials took turnsdrenching Donald Trump with praisethat some critics found evocative of politics in North Korea. Yet beyond the walls of the White House, the mood was shifting. New data showed the economy is shrinking. The national security adviser was about to be ousted. Opinion polls told of a president whose unpopularity is historic.
After a hundred days in which Trump at times appeared invincible, political gravity is exerting itself. A majority of Americans regard him as both a failure and a would-be dictator. From the courts to the streets, from law offices to college campuses, revolt is swelling.Republicansare eyeing next year’s midterm elections with nervousness.
“The honeymoon is over,” saidJohn Zogby, an author and pollster. “He actually squandered his hundred days, perhaps you can argue, by doing too much, not succeeding with much of it and overplaying his hand. At the end of the 100 days his polling numbers reflect an unsuccessful quarter.Every poll that I know of, including mine, has him upside down.”
Trump took office on 20 January with huge political capital. He had beaten his election rival Kamala Harris in every swing state and won the national popular vote for the first time, albeit at less than 50%. Having survived four legal cases, his sense of vindication was absolute. Tech billionaires and media moguls came to his Mar-a-Lago estate to kiss the ring.
He started fast and furious. As Trump signed a record number of executive orders – now more than 140 – Democrats looked like a boxer dazed by a flurry of punches at the opening bell. They struggled to find their feet and respond to a president who at breathtaking speed marginalised Congress, attacked judges and unleashed Elon Musk to eviscerate the federal government.
Michael Steele, former chairman of the Republican National Committee, said: “The reality is you do it fast, you do it furious, you do it at different times and levels and places and you wind up creating 100 rabbit holes at one time. People are stuck trying to figure out which is the most important rabbit hole to go down. That’s what you’ve seen play out.”
Yet 2 April, which Trump dubbed “liberation day” as he announced sweeping global tariffs, may also come to be seen as overreach day. His haphazard trade war rattled allies and wiped trillions of dollars off the stock market. Only fears of a bond market catastrophe spooked him into hitting the pause button. But he left in place tariffs on China as high as 145% and Beijing has refused to blink.
The chaos has shaken the faith of Trump voters who felt that he would at least deliver economic competence and guarantee the bottom line. Food prices are rising and tariffs are expected to disrupt supply chains soon, leading to empty shelves reminiscent of the Covid-19 pandemic. On Wednesday Trump admitted children might “have two dolls instead of 30 dolls” at Christmas and sought to blame his predecessor Joe Biden.
Meanwhile Musk hassown further discord. Tens of thousands of people have lost their jobs. The US development agency USAID, a crucial tool of soft power, was closed. The social security welfare system has reportedly been hit by regional office closures, website crashes and some recipients being declared dead. Yet Doge looks set to fall well short of its $1tn target in savings and Musk is preparing to step away.
Trump is even losing public backing on his signature issue of immigration. He sent troops to the border and expanded deportation targets, leading to a steep drop in illegal border crossings. But efforts to use the Alien Enemies Act for rapid deportations have faced legal challenges and concerns about due process.
The aggressive enforcement led to the mistaken deportation ofKilmar Ábrego García, a Maryland man with protected legal status, to a notorious prison in El Salvador. The supreme court ordered the administration to facilitate his return but Trump has refused.
Trump promised to swiftly end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza but both conflicts continue. His national security adviser, Mike Waltz, mistakenly added a journalist to a sensitive Signal chat discussing military operations. On Thursday it emerged that Waltz would leave his post and be nominated as US ambassador to the UN instead.
Trump vowed to be a “dictator” on “day one” but, critics say, his pretensions to authoritarianism have been undercut by the ineptitude that derailed his first term and led to a crushing defeat in 2020. He has the lowest approval rating at the 100-day mark of any president in the past 80 years.
According to a poll published by the Washington Post newspaper and ABC News, only 39% of Americans approve of how Trump is conducting his presidency. About 64% of respondents said he was “going too far” in his efforts to expand presidential powers.
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Another survey by the Decision Desk HQ survey showed 44% approval and 56% disapproval. It also found that 64% of respondents said tariffs hurt consumers, and 91% were worried about inflation, with 62% “very concerned”. The Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) thinktank found that 52% agreed Trump was “a dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy”.
Opposition is manifesting itself in myriad ways and cutting Trump down to size. About 50 of his executive orders have been partially or fully blocked by courts, while about 40 have been left in effect, according to a count by the Associated Press.
Anti-Trump demonstrations are growing in scale and frequency in cities and towns across the country. Democrats are holding raucous town halls in traditional Republican territory. After initially buckling under Trump’s “days of thunder”, law firms, non-profits and universities have found a spine and are feeding off one another’s resolve. Political commentators sense that the momentum is shifting.
Charlie Sykes, a conservative author and broadcaster, said: “What Trump had going for him was he created this sense that he was an irresistible force, that resistance was futile, that everyone had to accommodate his whims and his agenda.
“But now you’re seeing the supreme court pushing back on him, the markets expressing alarm and his poll numbers going south. The shock and awe which seemed irresistible for so long now seems to be encountering much more resistance.”
Trump is not the first president to feel the pinch of political gravity. Biden started positively but saw his approval rating dip below 50% for the first time in August 2021, following the botched US military withdrawal from Afghanistan, according toan NBC News poll,He never recovered.
A sustained backlash against Trump could become a threat to Republicans who, while more devoutly loyal than ever, have to worry about their seats in Congress in themidterm electionsin November 2026. Historically the party that holds the White House tends to suffer losses in the midterms. Republicans currently hold a narrow 220-213 majority in the House of Representatives.
Patrick Gaspard, a former official in the Barack Obama administration, said: “I would not judge this presidency to be a success. More likely than not we’ll begin to see Republicans whose names are on the ballot in 2026 slowly but clearly moving away from this agenda. It’s very clear that many Trump voters already have buyer’s remorse.”