"Interstellar: The Movie," starring DJ Trump

We're now 58 days in, leaving 1,403 others to go. In view of foregone events' spectacular rate of velocity, their plotted heading, secretarial wormholes and, above all, perceptible gravitational effects on Florida's orange-tinted black hole of Gargantua, we should pass ourselves on this once-unthinkable journey of madness well before electoral relativity regains its footing.

About that gravity: Its effects on Trump are indeed perceptible; its pull, encouraging. Below is Real Clear Polling's March table. Of particular interest is that in the mix there's a far stronger bias toward disapproval of Trump than what the graph shows on its face, that being seven polls of net disapproval and four, approve. But the 7:4 ratio is actually closer to 7:1. You can be forgiven for striking Rasmussen's consistently pro-Trump/Republican results; RMG Research's "findings" and explanation of "methodology" consist of one page (the asterisk denoting ownership by Rasmussen's founder, Scott Rasmussen); and Trafalgar is a one-man far-right joke of a surveying operation. Hence, Emerson College's poll stands alone with its inside-margin-of-error +2 approve.

RCP's net-disapproval average of +0.9 can therefore be dismissed as well. Replacing it is Nate's Bulletin, also of special interest because of its overnight uptick from about +1 net disapproval (as I recall from yesterday's graph) to more than +2.

So far none of these anti-Trump statistics is galactic in size or first impression. Seismic — "Good Vibrations" — is more like it. Good too is that Trump launched his regime with less than majority numbers, and even that he's been undermining since Day One, blathering psychotically about everything under the sun (and overseas) but what voters have wanted to hear: how he's going to lower prices. Shocking, is it not, that Trump hasn't a clue much less a plan.

Instead, "inflation expectations are rising at an unprecedented pace." It gets worse, or for those of anti-authoritarian sentiment, it gets better. "It's official," observes Catherine Rampell, "Trump is dragging down not just the U.S. economy but the global economy, too. That’s according to a new world economic outlook report" released by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Its analysts "blamed two major forces: rising uncertainty and escalating trade wars. Both have been instigated by Trump." And resentment of both, in time, will show in his numbers.

Showing now in Quinnipiac's poll (top graph), however, is the instigator's first double-digit disapproval score, the first I've seen, at any rate. Just a few other notable stats: Atlas Intel, the most accurate political survey operation in 2024, finds men nearly equal to women in their disapproval of Trump, 51% and 53% respectively. He's underwater with those whose income is below $50k — his prinicpal base — and this I found extraordinarily hopeful for the post-Trump years: in the 30-44 age group, his disapproval percentage is an astonishing 84.

While Trump's polling in general suggests no sudden, stellar implosion — in fact it never will, not with today's hyperpartisanship, negative partisanship and the immovable untruth-believing MAGA crowd — its one heavenly elegance is infused in the light speed at which he's traveling against his own interests, on tariffs, the government workforce, Russia-Ukraine, Israel-Hamas, Mexico, Canada, Greenland, federal judges. Republicans still love him and Democrats hate him in hugely lopsided percentages, but independents' disapproval of the job he's doing by 58-36 percent (Quinnipiac) is a kind of embryonic super nova of Trumpism's electoral doom.

All of which further suggests a simple answer to the questions, as The NY Times reports, that Democratic leaders are asking themselves: "How hard should they resist? Battle President Trump at every turn, or focus on finding common ground? Move right on some cultural issues, or offer a full-throated defense of liberal values? Try to win back some Trump voters, or prioritize those turned off by both parties?"

The answer to each — yes. When you're down, go cosmic, be something to everyone, the universal fundament of politics.