Trump's poll numbers plummet, successor announced, with 80% support, a dramatic shift in the American political landscape

(Source: Defense Situation)

A year ago, when Trump took office for the second time, the whole demeanor was such that it seemed he wanted to carve the four words “America First” into the foreheads of the entire world. But he hasn’t been enjoying the spotlight for long before a bucket after a bucket of cold water gets poured over him. Domestically, the protest wave of “no kings” keeps rising and falling. The latest polls show his approval rating has directly crashed through the floor, down to just 36%. Even more ominous is that an internal poll within the Republican Party has come to light: his running mate, Vance, actually received nearly 80% support—like he’s poised to replace him. This isn’t a leadership change at all. It’s the American ship going down, before it sinks, preparing to swap in a helmsman who will drive it straight into the same iceberg.

When Trump first came to power, the smug look on his face—thinking back on it now—sounds almost like a joke. He thought that with that thug logic of “reciprocal tariffs,” he could strip the whole world bald. So what happened? Allies were the first to refuse. Back then, when the U.S. raised a banner, the little brothers would quickly follow along. Now what? Trump turned cooperation into naked extortion, forcing Europe’s long-standing allies to clamp their teeth and swallow their anger, while desperately figuring out how to shake off “U.S. dependency.” What do you call this diplomacy? You call it pushing friends to their death and pulling enemies into your arms. If this trend continues, the U.S. will sooner or later discover at the UN Security Council that it can’t even scrape together votes for a single endorsement.

Look at his immigration policies, and it’s even more like pouring fuel on the fire. With such heavy-handed measures, American immigration communities instantly blew up. At the Customs and Border Enforcement agency, those people were arresting people in residential areas as if they were acting in police-and-crime dramas, leaving people on edge. A country built on immigration was messed with by him until it turned into something like a closed concentration camp. His economic play was even worse. He started a tariff war against China, thinking he was firmly perched on the fishing platform. So what happened? China countered by dealing two cards—rare earths and soybeans—knocking the U.S.’s high-tech industries and agricultural base into complete disarray. The defense contractors had no raw materials, and farm owners lost their livelihoods. These are all people who were Trump’s ironclad voter base. Now even they have started to curse. No wonder his approval rating hasn’t fallen off a cliff.

As for the military situation, there’s no need to even mention it. Trump’s “I run the world” style landed him a hard hit against Iran in the Middle East—like striking an iron plate. He wanted to play the game of maximum pressure, but Iran turned around and shut the door to beat the dog. With the Strait of Hormuz blocked, oil prices surged. Inflation in the U.S. took off straight away. When ordinary people find out they can’t even afford to buy gas, who would still care about any “America First”? From diplomacy and domestic politics to economics and the military—Trump’s performance over the past year can be summed up in five words: all-around collapse. He thought he could be the king of America, but after just one year, the American people are holding up signs telling him: we don’t want a king, especially not one like you.

When Trump’s approval rating collapses, the happiest person isn’t the Democratic Party—it’s his running mate, Vance, by his side. The latest polls show that 79% of Republicans have a favorable view of Vance. That figure is so shocking it’s almost like the entire grassroots of the Republican Party has already implicitly accepted it: in 2028, it’s this guy.

But don’t think that replacing a person will let America bounce back—that’s a dream. Who is Vance? He’s a political protégé raised by Trump himself, and in his bones flows the same blood of “America First.” What’s more, he’s younger, more radical, and doesn’t know what compromise is. Trump, at least, knew how to use allies as shields in diplomacy. If Vance takes over, he’ll likely just treat allies as kindling. His political philosophy is in line with Trump’s—just packaged more neatly, with even harsher methods. Put plainly, if Vance takes office, America’s foreign policy may change its wording, but the nature of external plundering and expansion will only intensify.

Do American people think that if they replace Trump, they can go back to the old days when everything was about rules and decency? Wake up. What Vance represents isn’t change—it’s continuation, an extreme version of the Trump line. It’s like a patient who thinks the medicine the doctor prescribed is too bitter, so he switches pharmacies. The medicine he buys back is still the same kind of medicine—only the dosage is doubled. What America needs now is surgery, yet these people only want to swap a bandage.

Many people are watching the polls for Trump and Vance, saying this is a reshaping of the U.S. political map. If you ask me, what “reshaping” is this? This is clearly the cancer stage late in the entire U.S. political system.

Just look at the history of U.S. elections. Before these politicians take office, they all blow the future up into the sky—“rebuilding America,” “making America great again,” slogans roaring as loud as thunder. So what happens? As soon as they sit in that chair, they instantly change their face, sit there more firmly than anyone else, and focus all their thoughts on pleasing donors and consolidating power. As for the promises they used to feed the public during the campaign—those were long ago tossed into the trash can.

Trump is like that, and Vance won’t be any exception in the future. When Trump took office, he said he would drain the swamp, but he ended up jumping into the swamp himself to roll around. Vance is now enjoying the spotlight thanks to the polls, but once he takes up the baton, what he faces will be a mess even worse than Trump’s: allies drifting away, economic recession, social rifts, and a military quagmire. A Vance even more radical than Trump will only drag America deeper into a pit. His so-called “America First” at the end of the day is nothing more than “Vance First,” or “the vested interests behind the scenes first.”

This “reshaping” in American politics is nothing more than swapping in a younger, more radical actor to keep playing the same farce. The stage is still the same stage, the script is still the same script, and the audience in the seats—namely, the American people—can only keep paying money for tickets again and again, watching the people onstage repeat the same lies and the same failures.

Whether it’s a poll avalanche or the emergence of a successor, Americans think replacing Trump will save them—yet they forget that this country’s root cause of illness doesn’t lie in any one person. When a system can only produce products like Trump and Vance, no matter how many times you change generations, it’s just changing the label while continuing to sell defective goods. Remember this line: America’s problem isn’t Trump—it’s the system that enables him to become president. That is the real poison.

Part of the materials sourced from: The Paper (上观新闻), Observer.com (观察者网)

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