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merican President Donald Trump’s approval rating has fallen to 33%, the lowest level of his current presidency, as growing concerns over the war with Iran and rising gasoline prices weigh on his standing with American voters, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Monday.

The four-day survey found that 64% of Americans disapproved of Trump’s performance, compared with 33% who approved. His approval rating fell from 35% in an earlier poll this month and matched the lowest level recorded during his previous presidency, in December 2017.

Trump returned to the White House in 2025 with approval from just under half of Americans, but his standing has weakened as the conflict with Iran has continued. The war has disrupted a significant share of global oil trade and pushed gasoline prices higher, adding pressure on U.S. households.

Most Americans expect Iran war to continue

The poll showed widespread concern that U.S. involvement in the conflict will last much longer than Trump initially suggested.

About 80% of Americans said they believed U.S. involvement in Iran would continue for an extended period, including 87% of Democrats and 71% of Republicans. Only 16% expected the conflict to end within a few weeks.

Trump initially suggested that the war could be resolved within weeks, but Iran has continued resisting U.S. and Israeli military pressure. The conflict has also disrupted oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, contributing to higher energy prices.

Trump has defended the rising cost of gasoline as necessary to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. At a rally in New York on Friday, he told supporters that paying somewhat more for gasoline was worthwhile to prevent what he described as an evil country from obtaining nuclear weapons.

However, only about one in five Americans said the war was worth the cost. Among Republicans, only about half considered the conflict worthwhile.

The economic impact of the war could become a major issue ahead of the Nov. 3 congressional elections, with Republicans seeking to defend narrow majorities in the House while Democrats increasingly see an opportunity to gain control of the Senate.

Democrats gain ground on economy

The poll also showed Democrats gaining an advantage over Republicans on economic issues. About 38% of registered voters said Democrats would handle the economy better, compared with 35% who preferred Republicans.

That represents a significant shift from previous years and comes as voters express increasing concern about the cost of living and gasoline prices.

Democrats were also viewed as better equipped to manage the cost of living, while Republicans continued to hold a narrow advantage on immigration.

About 40% of voters said Republicans had the better approach to immigration, compared with 38% who favored Democrats. The two-point Republican advantage was the smallest recorded during Trump’s current presidency. Republicans had held a 26-point advantage on immigration in January 2025.

Although Trump’s administration has overseen a sharp decline in border crossings and expanded immigration enforcement, Republicans have faced political pressure over deadly confrontations and the growing number of people held in immigration detention, including children.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online among 1,166 U.S. adults nationwide and had a margin of error of three percentage points in either direction.

The findings point to growing political challenges for Trump as voters confront the economic consequences of the Iran conflict and prepare to vote in the November midterm elections.

(Source: Reuters)

I‘don’t want them in our country. Their country is awful, and we don’t want them here. It’s like Somalia — you can’t even call it a country. They have nothing. They’re just running around killing each other. There’s no order. Their country is awful, and we don’t want them here.”

These statements were not made by a right-wing radical politician or an ultra-nationalist podcast host. In this manner, U.S. President Donald Trump explicitly outlined his intention to deport Somalis residing in the United States by December 2025. While these statements drew international criticism, they did not affect the leading figure of the new order.

In the US public sphere, immigration policy and the agendas of political parties that take positions on it have been among the most frequently discussed topics for years. Immigration policy is a central pillar of Trump’s election promises and has sometimes been discussed in more abstract terms, focusing on figures such as the number of border crossings, border violation graphs and sovereignty slogans.

However, recent events have brought the issue to the forefront. The increased visibility of images in US cities has brought the issue to the heart of domestic politics. Videos of masked federal agents conducting home raids and engaging in street brawls in Democrat-controlled cities have gone viral and resonated more widely. The actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) teams have created, and continue to create, a discursive and symbolic shift in US politics.

Minnesota, at the heart of recent events, has a more liberal demographic due to its large population of American citizens of Scandinavian origin, as well as people from countries such as Somalia. In Minneapolis, the state capital which has been won by Democrats in every presidential race since 1976, the killing of two people (Renée Good and Alex Pretti) by ICE agents with no outstanding deportation warrants has once again drawn attention to the country’s increasingly tense political climate.

Trump initially defended ICE agents, claiming that Good had run over an agent. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey then stated, “We don’t want ICE in our city”, to which Trump responded by calling Good a wonderful person and claiming that there are many different versions of the video footage. These events illustrate the tension between the president and local governments in the country. While these debates continue, on 11 January the U.S. Department of Labor posted on X: “One nation. One people. One heritage. Don’t forget who you are, Americans,” further highlights the ongoing tension. The post, ‘(One Homeland. One People. One Heritage. Remember who you are, American)’, fanned the flames.

On 24 January, the killing of Alex Pretti sparked public protests. On 27 January, allegations surfaced that Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino had been removed from his post. White House Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt responded by saying that Bovino would continue in his nationwide role. This U-turn by the Trump administration suggests that further softening and concessions will be made in the subsequent process.

Will ICE violence create a new political divide?

In the United States, where delicate balances are often struck, the approach to immigration is one of the main polarizing factors. One of the political paradoxes currently facing the Republican Party concerns the methods used to implement restrictive policies towards immigrants, and whether there is a red line on the issue. The methods employed erode confidence in the state’s ability to intervene effectively. Until now, Republican voters would have envisioned criminals being removed from the country after a proper legal process when hearing phrases like ‘secure the border’ or ‘mass deportation’. However, the operation of the ICE mechanism in areas such as Minneapolis forces Republican voters to confront the reality that the perceived threat could also affect their own living spaces.

In America’s periodic cycles of protest, incidents of police violence resulting in death and debates surrounding disproportionate force have flared up since the case of George Floyd (who also died in Minnesota in 2020). The targeting and methods employed can cause unease even among moderate Republicans. When officials make maximalist claims, questioning takes precedence over acceptance. Labelling the victim of violence as ‘armed and aggressive’ and presenting narratives inconsistent with footage of incidents involving people who have died at the hands of ICE can lead to a significant loss of trust.

A significant turning point in recent developments is not that Democrats are angry — Democrats are often angry about ICE — but that Republicans, including those who normally prefer a more conservative stance, are publicly expressing their unease. The fact that a small segment of persuadable voters have a ‘I wanted sanctions, but not like this’ mentality is creating a polarising political climate that undermines public trust.

Is there a legal framework?

ICE’s enforcement powers are based on federal immigration law and executive authority. This framework includes the arrest and detention of foreigners, the conduct of deportation operations and the investigation of immigration-related crimes, under certain conditions. However, authorisation does not imply unlimited power.

The debate over ‘entering homes without a warrant’ contradicts a fundamental principle of American law: that the home and its owner and land are the areas of greatest protection. In the US, especially, considering the Castle Doctrine, which is rooted in British tradition and posits that a person’s home is their castle, granting them the right to use deadly force to remove intruders if necessary, one can imagine the shock that such violations would cause. While immigration is, in many contexts, a matter of civil enforcement, the legitimacy of intrusion into private space depends on a warrant, consent, exigent circumstances and clear legal standards.

The friction between federal and local government also marks a new breaking point here. When the federal government appears to ‘sideline’ state authorities after deadly events, this exacerbates administrative problems and gives the impression of avoiding accountability. This represents a dead end for a country where institutional oversight is one of the cornerstones of legitimacy.

ICE’s current actions may be legally permissible, but they are still procedurally careless and legally questionable, and risk being perceived by citizens as an ‘expansion of state power’. The fact that this is happening in a country where the distinction between the state and the individual is particularly clear-cut points to another irony. The Trump administration was elected on the promise of restoring control. However, control is not solely measured by deportation numbers; it is also measured by public consent.

Trump’s presidency is rife with clear examples of his efforts to consolidate power. His rejection of the notion that the Department of Justice (DOJ) should be independent, his unprecedented resistance to congressional requests for information and investigations, and his claim of “absolute immunity” -the assertion that the president cannot be prosecuted for alleged crimes committed while in office- are all based on the most radical interpretation of the “Unitary Executive Theory”; the idea that all executive power is concentrated in the president and that other institutions should have limited intervention.

Despite these serious institutional threats, the most striking aspect of Trump’s political rhetoric is his capacity to trivialize and dilute issues. Trump practices politics as a performance art, a “reality show”. In political science, this is called “affective polarization,” which removes issues from the ground of rational debate and traps them in a cycle of identity-based allegiance and entertainment/anger. As expressed in the Turkish cultural expression “look at the juggler”: the attention of society is diverted from the real issue and drawn to an insignificant point, the juggler on the rope. Meanwhile, the ground is pulled out from beneath us.

One of the most grotesque examples of this is the video showing Trump, wearing his crown and sitting in the cockpit of a warplane emblazoned with the words “King Trump”, defecating on protesters. This type of propaganda material is a form of “troll” politics that cannot be explained by conventional political communication.

Dehumanizing the opposition

This video dehumanizes the opposition. Citizens who express constitutional concerns with the slogan “No Kings” are portrayed as “things” that deserve to be treated with contempt and have filth thrown at them. It drowns criticism in absurd humour and reduces a serious issue such as the erosion of constitutional order to crude humour (scatological humour), thereby nullifying its seriousness. Thanks to its absurdity, the video enters the news cycle and sets the media agenda. While political commentators debate whether it is appropriate or not, i.e. watching the “juggler,” the ongoing institutional erosion and centralisation of power in the background are overlooked.

Trump’s style, characterized by sensational actions, is a deliberate tactic that renders rational criticism impossible. Rather than responding to those who say, “You’re acting like a king,” with, “No, here are my constitutional arguments,” he shares a video showing him defecating on them, which ends the debate. For there can be no rational response to this. It paralyzes critical thinking and transforms politics from a battle of logic into a contest of will and shock. This leads to the corruption being accepted and normalized by society, which is the most dangerous stage of authoritarianism.

In an era where democracies are regressing not through military coups but through elected leaders gradually eroding legal boundaries, Trump’s actions and methods of dealing with criticism are spreading beyond U.S. borders, and the process is becoming contagious. The “authoritarian playbook” used by Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Narendra Modi in India, and similar leaders around the world shows striking similarities: control the judiciary, demonize the media, cast doubt on the electoral system, and declare the opposition “traitors to the nation”.

The leader of the liberal international order?

The United States has played a critical role since the Second World War in claiming to be the leader of the liberal international order and the beacon of democracy. When this beacon begins to falter, potential authoritarians are emboldened. If a president in the United States can reject election results, bend justice to suit personal interests, and consolidate political power without facing serious consequences, this signals a green light for leaders inclined to erode democracy.

Therefore, the U.S.’s authoritarian tendencies are a source of global concern.

The actions of the “No Kings” protesters are not limited to protecting their own constitutions; they are also part of the struggle to defend liberal democratic norms on a global scale. It is not what a group of protesters say, diluted by Trump’s sleight of hand, but the very idea of governance based on the rule of law. If the United States, a pioneer and one of the strongest representatives of modern democracy, cannot confront and defeat its own tendencies to create a “king,” there will be very few obstacles to the spread of authoritarianism like a contagious disease in the 21st century. The danger hidden in the humour of that grotesque artificial intelligence video is too serious to be taken lightly.

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resident Donald Trump said on Wednesday that South Africa will not be invited to the 2026 G20 summit in Miami, escalating tensions with Pretoria over what he claims is the country’s failure to protect white citizens — allegations repeatedly rejected by South African officials and contradicted by national crime data.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said South Africa had “demonstrated to the world they are not a country worthy of membership anywhere,” adding that the United States would halt all payments and subsidies to Pretoria “effective immediately.”

The move follows a month of strained exchanges between the two countries after the United States boycotted the annual G20 leaders’ meeting, held this year in Johannesburg. Trump has accused South Africa of enabling what he has described as “genocide” against white farmers, a narrative promoted for years by some conservative commentators but not supported by empirical evidence.

Diplomatic rift widens

Relations deteriorated further during the close of the Johannesburg summit when Washington attempted to send a representative from its embassy — rather than the president — to accept the ceremonial gavel handover. South Africa rejected the move as a diplomatic slight, calling it a breach of long-standing G20 protocol.

Trump responded by withdrawing the country’s invitation to the 2026 summit, which he plans to host at his Miami property.

The Trump administration has increasingly leaned into claims that South Africa’s white minority faces systemic discrimination. Earlier this year, the U.S. granted refugee status to dozens of white South Africans while reducing admissions from other regions, a move that drew criticism from rights groups and immigration analysts.

Elon Musk, the South African–born technology entrepreneur who has emerged as one of Trump’s closest advisers, has also amplified allegations of anti-white violence in the country.

However, official crime statistics do not support the administration’s assertions. South Africa recorded around 27,000 murders in the past year, with killings of white farmers representing less than 1 percent of the total. Independent analysts note that rural communities of all races face high levels of violent crime.

When Trump pressed the issue during an Oval Office meeting with President Cyril Ramaphosa in May — even displaying videos he said proved a “genocide” was underway — Ramaphosa dismissed the claims.

“I’d like to know where that is, because this I’ve never seen,” he replied, according to U.S. officials briefed on the meeting.

White house rhetoric hardens

Despite the pushback, Trump doubled down in his posts this week, accusing South Africa’s government of refusing to address “horrific Human Rights Abuses endured by Afrikaners, and other descendants of Dutch, French, and German settlers.”

“To put it more bluntly, they are killing white people, and randomly allowing their farms to be taken from them,” Trump wrote online.

South African officials have not yet issued a formal response to the disinvitation but have previously condemned similar accusations as “misinformation” that undermines bilateral ties.

With the U.S. set to assume the G20 presidency in 2026, South Africa’s exclusion marks an unprecedented step for the forum, which typically invites both members and select non-members to foster global cooperation on economic policy.

(Source: Reuters)