"Something to Carry Us All Forward"

In early July German historian Thomas Zimmer was invited to deliver a lecture to the Academy by the Sea, an adult education center on the island of Sylt in the North Sea. Zimmer, until earlier this year an affiliate professor at Georgetown University, describes feeling bad about forcing people on an education-vacation to think about Donald Trump; his presentation focused on American national identity and “who gets to be ‘We the People.’” As his presentation – full of stark assessments and doubts about any quick return to “normalcy” – wound down, one of the participants demanded more: “something people could do, something to carry us all forward.”

Zimmer, who confesses to normally avoiding such questions, characterizing himself as very much not a politician or an activist, was nonetheless moved on this occasion to “offer something more.”

The anti-democratic radicalization of the Right has not been fueled by a sense of strength, but by a pervasive sense of weakness. They are feeling their backs against the wall. And they are reacting to something real: Our “Western” societies have indeed become more pluralistic, less white, less overwhelmingly Christian. In that sense, it was not the perfectly stable liberal democracy that suddenly fell into crisis (because such an order had never existed), but white Christian patriarchal dominance – what the Right likes to call the “natural order” – that has been coming under pressure.

In his blog, Democracy Americana, Zimmer refers to a recent survey by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) titled “Competing visions of America at 250.” The survey was conducted between May 1-18 among a representative sample of more than 5,000 adults (18 and older) living in all 50 states. It shows that Trump’s favorability has declined from 42% before the 2024 election, to 34% currently. 62% of Americans “now view Trump unfavorably.” Among Republicans, Trump’s favorability has declined from 84% to 79% since September 2024; among independents his favorability declined from 37% to 25%. Perhaps more notably, among less committed Republicans Trump’s favorability declined from 70% to 63%, and among “Republican leaners” from 65% to 48%.

The survey also found that two-thirds of Americans oppose Trump’s handling of the war in Iran, compare to only 29% with “favorable views….” Of various demographic groups only white evangelical Protestant and Christian nationalists had “favorable views of Trump’s handling of the war in Iran.”

59% of those surveyed agreed with the statement “President Trump is a dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy,” up from 52% in March 2025. Only 34% of Americans are “extremely or very proud of America’s economic achievements,” only 24% support the statement that America is a good moral example for the world, and only 18% support “the way democracy is working in America today.”

Among Hispanic Americans support for the “American dream” – presented as the belief that if you work hard you’ll get ahead – declined sharply, from 52% in 2024 to 40% in 2026. Among AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islanders) this measure declined from 60% in 2024 and 2025 to 47% in 2026.

Zimmer homes in on the disconnect between the MAGA propaganda that Americans want

… an America that affirms its white Christian heritage rather than sacrificing it at the altar of “woke” radicalism; they don’t want the country to be overrun by strangers and foreigners from all over the world and instead demand to be living amongst people who look like them (white), pray to the same (Christian) God, and share the same cultural background ….

and the PRRI survey findings:

Nearly two-thirds of Americans (64%) would prefer “the U.S. to be a nation made up of people belonging to a wide variety of religions,” compared with 34% who prefer “the U.S. to be a nation primarily made up of people who follow the Christian faith.”

…

Most Americans (77%) prefer the U.S. to be a nation made up of people from all over the world rather than one primarily made up of people of Western European heritage (20%).

…

When asked about how important the following traits are to being “truly American,” most Americans say that believing in individual freedoms, such as freedom of speech (93%), believing in the Constitution (91%), accepting people of diverse racial and religious backgrounds (89%), believing in the Declaration of Independence (88%), respecting American political institutions and laws (88%) … [are important].

Meanwhile, a Fox News poll in July found record disapproval of Trump’s handling of the Iraq war, with 66% of all voters disapproving, comprised of 92% of Democrats, 74% of independents, and 33% of Republicans. An earlier Fox News poll also found that voters trusted Democrats rather than Republicans to handle 7 of 9 “top issues.” Issues where voters favored Democrats included income inequality, healthcare, inflation and prices, the economy (in general), foreign policy, government spending, and immigration; the survey found Republicans to be favored only on issues of national security and crime. And in a finding that Fox News admitted “bodes well for Democrats in November,” the poll found that 80% of voters wanted revolutionary (19%), substantial (38%), or dramatic (23%) change for the country.

A YouGov July poll showed Trump’s net job approval rating as -24 (36% approval, 66% disapproval), which is below Trump’s lowest approval in his first term, and below Joe Biden’s lowest measure. Survey research company Verasight reported that its May-July survey showed Democrats ahead by more than 7 points on a generic congressional ballot. Pollster G. Elliott Morris showed that the Verasight findings could be considered something of a “floor,” and that results were particularly sensitive to how individuals surveyed were labeled Democrat or Republican. He found, for example, that if he used responses of which party respondents leaned toward supporting in 2026 to assign their party id, the survey showed Democrats ahead by 8.75 points.

In June the American Bridge political action committee contracted data and technology firm Blue Labs to conduct a study of groups of voters in Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. The surveyed groups included specifically people who voted for Trump but now disapprove, others who describe themselves as persuadable, and finally people who by their own characterization are economically vulnerable. The pollsters asked these groups what they felt about the state of the economy, and who was responsible. As reported in The New Republic:

• In Iowa, 58 percent of the targeted voters saw the economy worsening and blame Trump for it, and 56 percent blame the GOP.
• In Michigan, 63 percent of these voters blame Trump, and 61 percent blame the GOP.
• In North Carolina, 51 percent of these voters blame Trump, and 48 percent blame the GOP.
• In Pennsylvania, 54 percent of these voters blame Trump, while 57 percent blame the GOP.

The researchers found similar results in specific House districts in the four states on their list that were won by Trump in 2024. Specific messaging that blamed Trump and Republicans for allowing corporations to charge high prices for medical and other goods and services, and promised that Democrats would hold them to account was found to resonate with the groups being studied. The report highlights a message that blames Republicans for enabling Trump’s tariffs and war in Iran, resulting in higher food and energy costs, and hurting “farmers who export goods.” Public polling confirms the American Bridge/Blue Labs study. As economist Paul Krugman reported:

… [R]ural white voters are no longer behaving like non-rural Republican voters. They are almost as negative on the economy as the population as a whole, with only 32% of rural whites approving of Trump’s handling of the economy, and 68% disapproving. Trump has made the rural economy so bad that reality has overridden Trump voters’ usual tendency to make excuses for him.

Krugman notes that in 2025 farm bankruptcies increased 46% over the prior year.

Analysis by Koch-aligned Americans for Prosperity Action (AFP Action) declared “1 in 5 reliable Republican base voters at risk,” according to a recent report in the Washington Post. According to AFP Action these voters in Iowa, Ohio, North Carolina, Montana, New Hampshire and Michigan tell pollsters they’re either considering staying home or voting for Democrats. And this high percentage of at-risk voters does not include so-called “low-propensity” voters who might vote in a presidential election but tend to sit out other years. Washington Post and Ipsos polling gives Democrats a 10 point advantage over Republicans among voters who say they are certain to vote this November. As the Post puts it this “could lead to a decisive advantage for Democrats….”

56-year-old retired insurance salesman Lance Sulentic told the Post, “We voted for Trump, and he did the opposite of what he said he was going to do.”

Gas prices were going to be two dollars, food was going to be cheaper, energy prices was going to be in half, we were going to get two rebate checks to the American people, and we weren’t going to have any new wars, and we were going to build a wall and deport 30 million illegal aliens, and he did none of it.

With the war in Iran escalating, more service members dying, gas prices rising, and the possibility of diplomatic solutions fading, on July 22 Politico’s Playbook reported a Republican operative admitting that they were “preparing for the bottom to fall out” in November. The operative reported Iowa, Alaska, and Ohio “firmly in play.”

Iowa Democratic Senate candidate Rep. Josh Turek has made the Iran war a focus of his campaign. Turek has emphasized economic issues, including how the “unnecessary war in Iran” is making gas less affordable. By contrast, official Republican messaging has seemingly ignored economic issues, focusing instead on safety and security, and made-up items like “healthcare for illegal immigrants and transgender surgeries for children.” However, Politico reports anxiety spreading in “Trump’s own orbit.” Referring to the Iran war as a “classic escalation trap,” someone identified only as “a person close to the White House” characterized the administration’s handling of the Iran war as “badly mismanaged and driven increasingly by the president’s refusal to acknowledge a loss.” Another unidentified “operative” admitted to Politico that the White House’s inability to craft a coherent message on Iran has adversely affected the campaigns of Republican candidates. “The messaging alone coming out of the administration has handcuffed candidates heading into the midterms. It’s all over the place — they don’t know whether to lean into saying Iran has been obliterated or that we’re heading toward peace,” the operative said. If the Iran war is “still raging” in September, the first operative conceded, “it will likely become ‘the predominant political issue going into November.’”

In mid-July right-wing news outlets first announced that in a rare prime-time TV address on July 16 Trump would present proof of fraud in the 2020 election in Georgia, but almost immediately withdrew that claim, saying that “The White House tells us President Trump’s speech will not focus on Georgia’s 2020 elections.” Trump did release some documents he claimed showed vulnerabilities in US election systems. But, as the Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal noted in its response titled “The SAVE America Act Backfire,” the declassified memo actually documents the unlikelihood of external actors being able to affect US election results.

“The systems in each voting location are not connected to the Internet or to each other, and many methods for exploiting them rely on physical proximity.” Achieving it across many jurisdictions “would be difficult” and “audits and paper trails very likely would uncover such an effort.”

The real focus of Trump’s quixotic address was apparently cheerleading for passage of the SAVE America Act.¹ As the WSJ editorial notes, voter ID in general, such as a driver's license, is popular with voters, but the details contained in the legislation are not. (A March 2026 CNN poll found only 28% of voters supported the details of the legislation.) In a floor speech on July 16, North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis suggested that, even if Congress managed to pass the bill, there isn’t time for the 10,000 county clerks and other officials to implement the required changes before November. More recently Trump has demanded that the Senate postpone its summer recess, and eliminate the filibuster, so as to pass the SAVE America Act. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told ABC News.

The WSJ Editorial Board, among others, believe that the message from Trump and others that US elections can’t be trusted could have the reverse of the intended effect. “Aside from being untrue, this is a political backfire for the GOP,” they write. “If Republican voters believe it, and the bill falls short, then why waste time going to the polls in November?”

Or in the words of Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff, as reported on MS Now, “Privately, most elected Republicans in this building think the president has lost it and is dooming them to dismal losses this fall.”

1. The original version of the bill, which amends the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, was introduced in the House of Representatives in January 2025. It passed the House in April 2025 but failed to pass the Senate. A new version of the bill, now called the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility America Act, was introduced in the House in January 2026, and passed the House on February 11. As of this writing it has not passed the Senate. The key provision of the bill is a requirement of “documentary proof of US citizenship,” which it defines as government issued photo-ID and proof of birth or naturalization as a US citizen with names matching current identification.↩︎