The Trump honeymoon will not last

As I speak, Donald Trump is enjoying something he has never experienced: a presidential honeymoon. The moment offers the president-elect an opportunity for a successful start to his second term. That was not the case last time.

Trump was on defense almost immediately after the 2016 election. Despite winning handily in the Electoral College, he had lost the popular vote, opening paths for Democrats and the media to question his legitimacy. The Democrats blamed Hillary Clinton’s defeat on Russian meddling and social media misinformation. Resistance was the order of the day.

The situation today could not be more different. CNN’s Harry Enten was the first to observe that the 2024 election is a twenty-first century rarity: most of the country accepts the result. Part of the reason must be that Trump won the popular vote, and with close to an outright majority.

There is also the fact of Trump’s new popularity. During his first term, Trump did not rise above 47 percent job approval in the RealClear Politics average of polls. His disapproval rating was consistently higher than his approval rating. He was the first president not to reach 50 percent approval in the Gallup poll at any point in his term.

Yet four years of Joe Biden caused the electorate to reassess Donald Trump. Voters discovered that they liked him better than before. On Election Day, according to the Fox News Voter Analysis, Biden’s approval rating was 42 percent. Trump, by contrast, had a job approval rating of 52 percent.

Polls since the election have shown that the public continues to view Trump favorably. The Trump transition is more popular still. That is what a honeymoon looks like.

No doubt Trump’s record looks better to voters when compared with Biden’s incompetence and policy perversity. Before the coronavirus pandemic, the economy enjoyed growth and higher incomes without inflation, the southern border was secure, and the world was stable. Biden presided over record inflation, record illegal immigration, and the collapse of deterrence in Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Israel. As Biden shuffles off the stage, voters recognize that they made a mistake four years ago. Trump benefits.

Trump also benefits because over the past year he became a figure of sympathy and even fun. His appearances outside his New York City trial for business fraud highlighted the disparity between the justice system’s treatment of Republicans and conservatives and its handling of President Biden and the Biden family. And when the assassin’s bullet grazed his ear in Butler, Pennsylvania, he responded vigorously and courageously.

Meanwhile, Trump displayed a lighter and more sympathetic side to his personality in his appearances at a police officer’s funeral, at a Harlem bodega, at a rally in the Bronx, and in countless long and frank interviews on popular podcasts such as Joe Rogan’s. His silly YMCA dance became a cultural trope.

By the end of the campaign, when Trump worked the drive-through line at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania and donned a safety vest and rode a garbage truck in Wisconsin, he was not only having more fun than his opponent. He was taking on symbolic meaning as the irreverent, fearless, and shameless champion of working class, traditional America.

The Democrats, for their part, have faded into the background. The party has no leaders. Biden and Harris are barely visible. The Democrats in Congress are consumed with internal battles, and with determining the direction of their party. Other Trump antagonists, such as the hosts of Morning Joe and the prime minister of Canada, have made the trek to Mar-a-Lago, seeking a rapprochement with the once and future president.

These are happy holidays, then, for the president elect. Yet he must know as well as anyone that every honeymoon comes to an end. And at some point, the Trumpmoon will end, too.