President’s Day Without a Mirror
For eighty-eight years, one question followed every president since Franklin D. Roosevelt: Do you approve of the job he is doing? That question survived war, scandal, assassination, recession, impeachment, and pandemic because in a republic the public gets to judge the president. Presidents have endured low numbers before. They have governed through criticism. They accepted that approval is earned, not declared.
Now, after nearly nine decades of tracking presidential approval, Gallup has stepped away from the practice, and that decision comes during the second term of Donald Trump. We are told it is a business decision. Maybe it is. But timing matters.
Trump’s unpopularity is not a brief slump. In his first term he held some of the lowest approval ratings of the modern era. In his second, he rivals only himself. That is not spin. It is a sustained pattern of public disapproval.
When faced with that reality, he has not simply argued with the press or criticized polling methods. He has sued. After the 2024 election, he sued Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer and The Des Moines Register over a poll that showed him trailing, claiming the results were fraudulent. A sitting president using consumer fraud law against a pollster for publishing unfavorable numbers crosses a line. It signals that public opinion itself can be treated as a legal offense.
Polling is only one way Americans measure a presidency. Economic numbers matter too. Job growth, inflation, wage data, labor participation, independent audits. These figures tell citizens whether policies are working. When recent jobs numbers appeared favorable, the administration promoted them loudly. That is normal politics. The problem appears when approval polling goes the other way and is dismissed as fake or corrupt.
The issue is not that numbers exist. It is that their legitimacy seems to depend on whether they flatter power.
When data supports the administration, it is proof. When it challenges the administration, it is fraud. That pattern weakens trust in independent measurement. Agencies and researchers operate in an atmosphere where unfavorable findings may invite public attack or even litigation. Over time, that pressure changes behavior. It encourages caution instead of candor.
The cost is real. If independent measurement loses credibility, unemployment can rise while officials insist the economy is strong. Inflation can erode paychecks while critics are dismissed as partisan. Policy failures can deepen without clear benchmarks to expose them. Voters approach elections sorting through competing narratives instead of reliable data.
A republic can survive low approval ratings. It cannot survive a president who insists that disapproval itself must be illegitimate.
President’s Day honors the office, not the man. Previous presidents governed through low numbers without trying to turn polling into fraud or criticism into a lawsuit. They endured the mirror because they understood that the people, not the president, are sovereign.
The question remains simple: Do you approve of the job he is doing?
The health of the republic depends less on the answer than on the continued freedom to ask it, measure it, and publish it without fear.
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*Tony Pentimalli is a political analyst and commentator fighting for democracy, economic justice, and social equity. Follow him for sharp analysis and hard-hitting critiques on Facebook and BlueSky
@tonywriteshere.bsky.social
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