From New York Times' opinion, I'm Ross Douthat.
This is Interesting Times, and today I'm going to tell you something that too few conservatives are willing to admit.
A year into his second presidency, Donald Trump has lost the country.
The majority of voters believe the country is worse off today than Trump's
approval rating at 37 percent, the lowest of his second term.
And the grand coalition that he assembled to defeat Kamala Harris has evaporated.
And all of this was predictable.
From the first days of Doge, through the debacle in Minneapolis, the Trump administration
has consistently governed as though swing voters and moderates aren't important to its coalition.
And now, sure enough, they aren't.
So I work on my family's farm and we've lost our best hands because of Trump's deportations.
I regret voting for Donald Trump.
But here's the thing.
It's not moderates and swing voters who lose out when a right-wing administration loses popularity.
It's people on the right, people like me.
Certainly people further to my right who support some of the big things the administration has tried to do.
Who like having a secure border.
Who like seeing universities pressured to become more ideologically diverse.
Who want to see DEI reset and rolled back.
All of that, all of that agenda will just disappear.