Trump's popularity is small and precarious.

But it could be worse -- he could be a Democrat.

Donald Trump’s popularity at the outset of his second term is not something you’d write home about. Yes, he’s acting quickly (in some cases, too quickly and too thoughtlessly) to do what he said he was going to do, but roughly half the country voted against his program to start with. Given that, his approval, while not great, isn’t that bad. As USA Today notes:

It's been more than one week in President Donald Trump's second term and some Americans have spoken.

According to a national study conducted by Emerson College Polling, President Trump has started his term with a 49% approval rating. He also got a 41% disapproval rate, while 10% are neutral.

“President Trump’s 49% job approval rating closely reflects his share of national support in the 2024 election, and his 41% disapproval is the lowest it has been in Emerson national polls dating back to his first term,” said Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling.

The the legacy media, ABC News in particular, predictably puts a negative spin on it, with a story titled, “Once again, Trump starts a term with a weak approval rating”:

Trump's initial net approval rating of +7 percentage points [49.8% approval to 42.8% disapproval] is lower than that of any newly elected president since World War II, with one exception: Trump himself during his first term. Trump began his presidency in 2017 with a 44.6 percent approval rating and a 41.4 percent disapproval rating, based on applying our current averaging methodology retroactively. Before that, the record low for initial net approval rating was set by former President George W. Bush in 2001, at +28 points. However, former President Joe Biden started his first term at +22 in 2021 [53.5% approval to 31.7% disapproval].

Not mentioned is Biden’s underwater number toward the end of his term (39% approval, a number so bad that it, together with his shockingly one-sided loss to Trump in their debate, caused the Democrats to force him out in favor of — honest now! — Kamala Harris). What is mentioned, albeit farther down the page, is that Richard Nixon, of all people, started his ‘68 term with a + 54% net — 59% approval to a record low of 5% disapproval.

Still, ABC does some important ‘fessing up, so you have to give them credit:

Trump faces a number of tailwinds and headwinds in his first month in office. His marquee executive order to deport immigrants who are in the country illegally and have been accused of crimes is broadly supported by the American public. And an Associated Press/NORC poll conducted earlier this month found a supermajority of adults support deporting immigrants "who have been convicted of a violent crime" — with higher support for immigrants who are here illegally (83 percent) versus those who are here legally (69 percent). There is also support for reducing the number of immigrants coming into America legally, finishing the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and declaring a national border emergency.

Since immigration was at times cited as the single most important issue in the campaign, outstripping even inflation in some polls, this is quite an admission.

But there’s bad news for Trump too, and it’s fair enough to say so:

[A] number of Trump's early actions also have the potential to spark backlash. Pardoning the people who unlawfully entered the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and committed acts of violence is decidedly unpopular, for example, with just 21 percent of adults in favor, according to that AP/NORC poll.

As Paul has shown, pardoning violent protesters, in contradiction to what Trump and Vice President Vance had unmistakably, and wisely, said during the campaign, deserves its unpopularity. The man whose oath of Office most prominently includes the promise to “take care that the Laws be faithfully executed” simply cannot give a walk to fully intentional, and violent, lawbreakers.

Still, if Trump starts out with the electorate in a less than optimal position by historical standards, it could be worse. Worse, for example, if he were a Democrat. As noted by Fox Red State the Washington Post in its story, “Democrats’ brutal poll problem”:

It has been evident for some time that the Democratic Party isn’t in a great place. It’s somewhat normal for that to be the case for a party after a disappointing election.

But the scale of Democrats’ problems is beginning to come into focus. And it’s both stark and sobering for the blue team.

A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday had this stunning finding: While Americans were about evenly split in their views of the Republican Party (43 percent favorable to 45 percent unfavorable), negative views of the Democratic Party outpaced positive ones by 26 points — 31 percent favorable to 57 percent unfavorable.

That’s not only a huge imbalance but also an unprecedented one.

In fact, Democrats’ 57 percent unfavorable rating is their highest ever in Quinnipiac’s polling, dating back to 2008, while the GOP’s 43 percent favorable rating is its highest ever.

Oooooooooooooops. That we see a story like this in the WaPo is possible evidence that its declining readership is having an effect. (The hopeful part of me would like to think, however, that a waif of honesty is still struggling somewhere inside the paper).

This doesn’t necessarily mean, of course, that Democrats will be in the wilderness for years to come.

For instance, they saw a similar — if less pronounced — dip after another disappointing presidential election, in 2016. They wound up having a series of good elections over the next six years. Republicans also won big in the 2010 midterms despite starting the election cycle much more unpopular as a party.

The article continues in this roughly balanced and informative way, and is worth your time to read. If you do, however, you can’t help but spot its gaping omission, namely any analysis whatever of why the Democrats are held in such low public esteem.

It’s perhaps asking too much for a pretty much slavishly Democratic organ to take that one on, but out-of-control immigration, sky-high prices for most everything, crime, surrender of energy independence, race huckstering, 79 genders, and chronic weakness in the face of our enemies — while they can all be shoved behind the MSM curtain — can’t, as we saw last November, stay permanently hidden from the public.