The tide isn’t just turning; it’s pulling back to reveal a presidency on hollow ground. Donald Trump has officially secured the second-lowest approval rating in U.S. history, a 36% rock-bottom that places him in the grim company of Richard “Mr. Watergate” Nixon. But the real “reckoning” isn’t just in the data, it’s in the mounting defections and the resistance that’s unapologetically surging as his armor weakens.
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When your most vocal foot soldiers, from Marjorie Taylor Greene to Candace Owens to Elon Musk start publicly trading loyalty for critiques, the MAGA monolith begins to look more like a civil war. And a house divided will fall.
Greene’s recent resignation from Congress after being dubbed a “traitor” by the man she once championed was the final signal that blind loyalty is just that: blind. A once-defined movement has been officially fractured and the nation isn’t just watching with a bowl of popcorn, it’s witnessing an unforgiving fallout in real time.
A Gallup poll tracking Trump’s handling of the country’s most pressing issues revealed a “significant erosion in approval” across the board. From immigration and the federal budget to the Israel-Hamas war and the economy, the numbers signal a downward trend for a second-term presidency that many critics say is the definition of a flop.
On the flip side, the resistance isn’t just holding signs or pounding pavements anymore; they’re smelling blood in the water like starving sharks. That Gallup-low 36% approval rating is basically a giant “Go” signal for donor money and grassroots energy to flood into swing states. If Trump can’t keep his own inner circle from jumping ship, convincing a suburban swing voter in Pennsylvania or Arizona to stick around could be near-impossible. And some Americans are downright tired.
Exhausted even, of Trump seemingly weaponizing the Department of Justice for personal revenge. The Root previously reported how the country is witnessing the unveiling of a “vengeance quota,” an unofficial term that defines Trump’s use of the powers that be for spite against his perceived opponents. What might have once been dismissed as a personal grudge has now been institutionalized.
Even his own Chief of Staff Susie Wiles admitted in a bombshell Vanity Fair interview how she tried to broker a “loose agreement” to keep Trump’s seemingly innate instinct for revenge contained to a 90-day window. She admitted if there’s an opportunity for Trump to take retribution “he will go for it”– and she works for him.
The resistance showed its grit in the November elections, when Democrats dominated and made history at the same damn time. The small town of Latta, South Carolina, elected its first Black mayor Marcus McGrit. Up north, Detroit celebrated a milestone after electing the city’s first Black woman mayor, Mary Sheffield. In a historic double victory, Albany and Syracuse, New York, also elected their first Black women mayors.
Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a Root 100 honoree, shook the political landscape on Dec. 8 after announcing her run for the U.S. Senate in an explosive video that had the GOP shaking in their boots. Many folks suspect a dominating repeat in the 2026 state primary elections where some wrongs can finally be made right.
Because some Americans say they are exhausted of the “monster” headlines, the “shady” social media posts and the constant feeling that the ground is shifting beneath their feet. Trump seemingly getting weaker and the resistance surging isn’t just about polls and regretful MAGA voters; it’s about a society finally deciding that enough is enough.
They aren’t just watching the tide turn; they’re watching a tsunami of accountability. Many citizens hope that what’s left on the shore is something they can actually start to rebuild, one act of resistance at a time.
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