Behind the triumphant rallies and choreographed moments, the country’s mood has settled into something far duller and more dangerous: exhaustion. Trump’s second term hasn’t unleashed a tidal wave of new believers so much as it has deepened the grooves already carved into the electorate. Roughly four in ten still cheer him on, convinced the chaos is proof of necessary disruption; most of the rest look on with a blend of distrust, fear, or numb resignation.

His boasts about tariffs, cheap gas, and swagger abroad crash daily into lived reality: stubborn prices, frayed alliances, and a constant, low‑grade anxiety about what comes next. Immigration raids and hardline orders thrill his base while leaving others feeling hunted or unheard. The presidency itself now feels like a running argument rather than a settled fact, each poll a reminder that the story isn’t a triumphant rewrite of history, but a contested draft, still being fought over by a country unsure whether it’s witnessing renewal—or slow, grinding erosi