The Cracks Are Showing: Trump’s Coalition Is Turning on Him

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]Salutations, fellow nerds. I'm Rick Y, and today is May 28th, 2026. Friends, I have often said here that there had to be a turn of the tide for there to be a change in direction. The biggest issue was that many people insisted that it wasn't possible. MAGA is such a strong cult of personality that they said that there was no chance that these people would ever change their minds. I even said that we would likely have to accept some kind of strange bedfellows in the near future. And I've had to explain repeatedly that taking on allies does not mean making friends or forgetting transgressions or pretending people didn't help create this mess in the first place. Strategically, however, much of what I have said would happen has already begun to happen. And for my next magical act, I think this has gone on far too long and too publicly and too chaotically for Republicans to fully stop the bleeding before the midterms.

[00:01:01]Frankly, Democrats could probably go out of their way to lose and the numbers would still currently favor them. So, let's get into it.

[00:01:11]>> A wise guy, a e. First, I want to start off by saying that I've heard from more than a few insiders now that the VP may allegedly be in some hot water over a leak situation. And some people hear that immediately start celebrating. But for me, not so much. Because if that is even remotely true and Trump replaces him with someone even more ideologically extreme like Steven Miller, we could end up in a much worse situation depending on what happens moving forward. So, I will be keeping my ear close to the ground on that one. Now, let's talk about some important numbers. Recent national polling has Donald Trump sitting at around 34 to 40% approval and 56 to 61% disapproval depending on the pollster and methodology. Now, Reuters Ipsos recently had him around 35% while Quinnipic had around 34%. And honestly, I'm probably being generous here because of the trend itself is steadily moving downward. Those numbers are actually really important because mid to high30s approval territory is politically dangerous for an incumbent president, particularly heading into midterm elections. The situation becomes even more precarious when the weakness is concentrated around economic concerns like inflation, prices, and costs of living. Now, historically, presidents can often survive ugly foreign policy polling if people still feel financially stable at home. Economic dissatisfaction, however, cuts much deeper politically and is far harder to offset with messaging alone. Recent national polling has Donald Trump at roughly around 34 to 40% approval and 56 to 61% disapproval, depending on the pollster and the methodology. Reuters Ipsos recently measured him at 35% while Quinnipic placed him around 34%. And honestly, I'm probably being generous because the trend has itself been moving steadily downward. Those numbers are actually very important because mid to high30s approval territory is politically dangerous for an incumbent president, particularly heading into a midterm election. The situation becomes even more precarious when the weakness is concentrated around economic concerns like inflation, prices, and cost of living. Historically speaking, presidents can often survive ugly foreign policy polling if people still feel financially stable here at home.

[00:03:39]Economic dissatisfaction cuts much deeper politically, and it's far harder to offset with messaging. For example, President Harry S. Truman entered the 1946 midterms with approval in the 30s amid inflation and post-war economic frustration. Democrats suffered massive congressional losses. And Republicans regained control of Congress for the first time in years. President George W.

[00:04:05]Bush dropped into the high30s before the 2006 midterms as the Iraq War and dissatisfaction with the response to Hurricane Katrina eroded public confidence and Republicans lost both.

[00:04:17]the House and the Senate that year.

[00:04:21]A boy can dream.

[00:04:24]President Barack Hussein Obama hovered in the mid4s, not even the 30s, before the 2010 midterms amid unemployment and backlash over the slow recovery from the Great Recession. Democrats still suffered one of the largest House losses in modern history. That demonstrates how punishing economic anxiety can be when the approval is substantially higher than where Trump is currently sitting.

[00:04:51]President Joe Biden spent much of 2022 in the low 40s due largely to inflation concerns. Democrats performed better than expected electorally, but they still lost control of the House. One reason analysts considered the result unusually resilient was precisely because presidents with weak economic approval often perform much worse. But the one I think that matters the most is Jimmy Carter. President Jimmy Carter also experienced approval ratings in the 30s during periods of inflation, fuel crisis, and economic stagnation in the late7s. While he avoided total collapse during the 1978 midterms, those numbers foreshadowed the disaster that then came in 1980. And apparently Trump himself understands the historical parallel more than people realize because reports indicate Trump allegedly screamed at AIDS for hours after hearing about the jets that got shot down in Iran.

[00:05:52]According to those reports, he referenced Jimmy Carter directly, saying something along the lines of, "If you look at what happened to Jimmy Carter with the helicopters and the hostages, it cost them the election. What a mess."

[00:06:06]In other words, he understands these numbers are dangerous politically. And now there are even signs of visible cracking within the coalition itself.

[00:06:16]Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly, and Tim Dylan are all people who come from different slightly wings of the modern online right. Tucker Carlson largely represented nationalist and populist America first energy, particularly the anti-interventionalist and culturally combative side of MAGA politics. Megan Kelly occupied more of a traditional institutional conservative space, though increasingly blended with populist skepticism toward media and political elites. Tim Dylan, meanwhile, emerged from a more cynical anti-establishment internet culture. Politically, we would call it heterodox in style, but still heavily critical of liberals, corporate media, and mainstream Democrat politics.

[00:07:02]They like to consider themselves as enlightened centrists. Then you have people like Nick Fuentes who openly occupy a much more extremist and ideological corner of the online right.

[00:07:15]Unlike figures such as Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly, or Tim Dylan, who all operated within a mainstream conservative or populist ecosystem, Fuentes built his audience around explicit white nationalist rhetoric, authoritarian aesthetics, anti-semitic conspiracies, and highly online grievance politics. Interesting side note, this also had Santa race purist Megan Kelly swooning. Maybe both are into cats. Who knows? I'm not here to judge. They'd make a cute couple if Fuentes was down with women. This broader swath of conservative figures, many of whom helped build or even sustain the modern populist right, have increasingly been arriving at the same conclusion that Trump and many of the current policies are both unpopular and politically they're untenable. And what makes that significant is that the criticisms are not coming primarily from liberals or traditional Democrats.

[00:08:14]They're emerging from within the very ecosystem that once framed Trump as the answer to endless wars, economic frustration, institutional distrust, and elite detachment.

[00:08:27]The concerns vary depending on the figure, but the themes are increasingly similar. Growing economic anxiety, frustration over inflation and cost of living, fear of foreign policy escalation, exhaustion with constant political chaos, and concern that the movement has narrowed into loyalty politics rather than broad populism. And for some, the Iran issue became the breaking point. For others, it's been the tariffs, market instability, gas prices, or the perception that America First increasingly resembles the same interventionalist or economically disruptive politics that many supporters believe that they were voting against years ago. Now, that doesn't mean that the conservative movement is suddenly collapsing or abandoning Trump wholesale. His core base will always be extremely loyal. But it does suggest that parts of the coalition that once moved in near total media sync are becoming fractured, defensive, and ideologically uncertain in ways that are increasingly visible both in polling and conservative media itself.

[00:09:39]>> Expect the corruption to be quite as you know widespread as it's been and like the self-deing and the lining of his and his family's pockets. Like that's been a little shocking. um talking billions of dollars.

[00:09:50]>> Expect Trump to be so disrespectful of his base.

[00:09:53]>> Right. Right. Right.

[00:09:54]>> Well, you know what, Megan? Uh I got to push back a little bit because you know you know Trump didn't take a Saturday while he's while he's president. So I I don't know what you're talking about.

[00:10:03]>> Right. I mean, you look at like across the board of the Trump family. I've never seen a family get so rich off of a presidency.

[00:10:08]>> And it happened at the same time as we now have a Supreme Court ruling that basically says any official act he takes while in the White House is protected.

[00:10:13]Right.

[00:10:13]>> And those two things are, you know, seem to be giving him some sort of a hall pass that >> uh could very much get abused. I don't want to, you know, say he's crossed the line legally because I actually haven't taken a close look at that. But, you know, he's done a lot that pushes it right up to the line.

[00:10:27]>> And I just don't think we want our presidents or their families getting rich off of the presidency. And I really want to know more about all these trades that are happening on Iran right before he makes the announcements. Like, this is not the way it's supposed to be. this even one of those would have caused a massive scandal 12 13 years ago. You know, we shouldn't be so far a field that like these obvious ethical questions get skirted past with a glass house. I mean, Trump has cheated on every wife he's had. He he met Mara Naples while he was still married to the mother of his children, Ivana. It was all over the New York papers. I'm I'm from New York, upstate New York, but I was in New York at the when this all went down the city. And um >> he was like being touted like he was proud of the affair. It was all over the papers.

[00:11:08]>> So, and by the way, Ivana, his first wife, accused him of raping her >> that she alleged in her first book that he was so angry over the hair transplant he got that she made him get. It was so painful that he raped her and she later retracted that when he ran for president, but that stood on the books for some time. I don't know whether that's true or not. I'm just saying clearly not a great relationship there, right? Right.

[00:11:28]>> And then uh he winds up with Melania and you know the if you think Trump's been faithful to Melania, okay, that's great.

[00:11:36]You got you got bigger issues than I can solve here. But >> so the nerve like the nerve to act for him to be judging somebody else's marriage or love relationships or choices.

[00:11:46]>> It just shows you like he's got >> hutzbah I guess is the word for it. Like beyond and it was really inappropriate.

[00:11:52]No, it was wrong. It was what he said was wrong on many levels.

[00:11:54]>> America right now. People get mad when I say this. I don't care. Everything is some type of scop. And and that doesn't mean that you should lose all contact with reality. But what I mean by that, okay, is that and they're not even good.

[00:12:04]The scops are not even good. They're not good. They're effective because you're aiming for the lowest common denominator. And what I mean by a scop is they're literally coming out and and inventing people and inventing and you you have to go along with it. And the way they get you to do that is by shoving it down your throat. There's nowhere for you to go. You cannot escape. The only escape from this is death. You can't get away from it. War hero. War hero. War hero. War. They're in Kentucky doing whatever the [ __ ] they do to war hero. War hero. War hero. War hero. Navy Seal. Navy Seal. Handshake.

[00:12:36]Navy Seal. War hero. Navy Seal. To a point where like a horde of zombies, I guess they go into the voting booth and vote for this guy who's trying to quite literally kill their children. He wants their children dead. But because every day, war hero, war hero, Navy Seal, handshake, war hero, loyal, America, patriot, America. Look, you you just get TO A POINT YOU GO, I don't even know what's up and what's down, what's real or what's fake. This is what I mean about a scop. This is not a campaign.

[00:13:01]These are not campaigns, not campaigns about ideas where people are debating ideas. This is a psychological operation at aimed at the lowest common denominator lizard brain instincts THAT YOU HAVE. WAR HERO GOOD PATRIOT AMERICA APPLE PIE VOTE VOTE. It is a strange guttural. It's like it's like an EMP.

[00:13:18]It's like an electromagnetic pulse weapon that got in Kentucky. poor good hero apple America pie family it it means nothing then you go what does he want to do he wants to kill your children he wants your children in the Middle East getting killed that's what it is so we're dealing with such a and but it's not this is what bothers me it's not good if you have a modicum of of intelligence it's not even good it doesn't even inspire you can look at things that the government has pulled off and went wow they dotted all their eyes and they crossed all their tees now they have such little respect for you. They have almost no respect for you. You're being treated like an adolescent who is asking too many questions and is, you know, bothering them. Right now, the American public is bothering the government. And the government is dealing with that by making up stories and spending and having their and they're having their, you know, emissaries go out there and say, "This is reality." You understand that? As long as you live in my house, you got to live under my rules. And in my house, Ed Gallerin is a patriot who wants the best for you and your children who are going to die in the Middle East.

[00:14:26]They're going to die in Iran.

[00:14:27]>> He's not done. Let's keep going here.

[00:14:29]>> I don't know how you run a country where people can just dump $32 million into a race. I think what it's showing you is that if you spend enough money, you can just create any reality you want.

[00:14:40]There'll >> be nothing like it. Open the effing straight. How dare you speak that way on Easter morning to the country? Who do you think you are? You're tweeting out the f-word on Easter morning. You'll be living in hell as if hell is a place.

[00:14:52]Hell is a condition. And this is an example of that condition. Just watch.

[00:14:56]Praise be to Allah. You're mocking the religion of Iran. Okay. If you seek a religious war, that's a good idea. The message of all faith at the biggest picture level is the message in our Bible, which is you are not God. And only if you think you are, do you talk this way. This is a mockery, not just of Islam. It's a mockery of Christianity.

[00:15:16]To send out a tweet with the f-word on Easter morning promising the murder of civilians and then saying, "Praise be to Allah," without explaining any of it.

[00:15:23]You are mocking me and every other Christian because we're Christians. We can't support that. And this isn't reserved solely to his media mouthpieces anymore either. supporters themselves are increasingly coming out publicly to apologize for supporting the man in the first place. Today's a day that I'm feeling a lot of remorse for having supported Trump and MAGA. It's a stark reminder to me about the remorse, regret, and some of the guilt that I feel over having supported Trump and MAGA. not just as a a mere voter, but someone who was an activist, who was a pundit, who worked on the Trump campaign, who donated to the Trump campaign, someone who was an unapologetic and public Trump and MAGA supporter as I was, I made a mistake. And I would ask all of you out there who right now have MAGA friends and relatives, I think a lot of them are starting to feel some regret. I think a lot of them are starting to privately and quietly have their own doubts, their own confusion, maybe questioning their beliefs. Maybe they're feeling a little bit guilt themselves about having supported Trump for Trump.

[00:16:41]>> And every day I regret my decision more and more and more.

[00:16:52]Back in November, I threw away all of my Trump, what have you. Don't get it twisted, though. Do not get it twisted. You could not have paid me to vote for Camala.

[00:17:12]In fact, all of this has now got me thinking, do I even vote ever again? Because they all suck. I never thought I would say it, but I'm a Trump hater.

[00:17:24]>> The biggest measure of intelligence is being able to change your mind on something when presented with new information. I posted a video last week that's ruffled some feathers on the internet, essentially admitting that I was wrong about my support for Trump and the whole MAGA movement. Just based on everything going on right now, what's happening isn't what I voted for and it isn't what I expected to happen. And I admitted it to the entire world that I was wrong. You know what happened? I've been getting torn apart by the same people that claim they want accountability. How could you fall for that? You're the reason we're in this mess. I don't accept your forgiveness.

[00:17:55]Huh? News flash. I didn't post that for your forgiveness. Quite frankly, I could give a [ __ ] about that. I posted it because on this page publicly, I talked about my support for him. And although my views didn't change, I was wrong about that as we're presented with new information. So, I felt like it was right to share. That's it. What I'm reminded of is the fact that you'll never satisfy haters, right? Whatever group falls into that hater category, you're never going to satisfy them. So, stop doing for them.

[00:18:19]>> I am a registered Republican. Voted for the president, supported him. But I really want to apologize. I mean, I'm looking at this awful picture of the Obamas. What an embarrassment to our country. All this man does is tell lies.

[00:18:41]He is not worthy of the presidency. He takes bribes blatantly. And now he's being a racist blatantly. They were supposed to deport the dangerous criminals. They were not supposed to go after small children, storm schools, bring terror upon, you know, the little kids and the women and children, not just the immigrants in the school. All the children are scared. Um, this is not a decent man. This is not an honest man.

[00:19:17]He openly takes bribes. He's pathetic as a president. And I just want to apologize to everybody in in the country for supporting this rotten rotten man.

[00:19:31]>> John, did you did you vote for him in all three elections?

[00:19:34]>> I did.

[00:19:35]>> So, hear me out. I'm not trying to tell you to embrace these people.

[00:19:40]I'm not here to tell you to forget anything that happened and I'm not here certainly to tell you to pretend people weren't harmed by this movement. But what I am saying is that we are entering an extremely pivotal political moment.

[00:19:57]The midterms are right around the corner. And if the House and Senate are not only reclaimed, but overwhelmed by a genuine blue wave, despite gerrymandering, despite redistricting, but despite Project 2025, despite all of the deeply unserious and dangerous people empowered by this administration, there is a real opportunity to halt this trajectory before it becomes entrenched.

[00:20:24]That opportunity is very real. But it's going to take work and it's going to take discipline. So if it means anything, don't think about the millionaires and influencers who can fail upward until the day that they die.

[00:20:39]Think instead about the genuinely embarrassed and apologetic former supporters who are now realizing what they've attached themselves to. And remember, there is no amount of shame, awkwardness, or public embarrassment you will ever experience knocking on doors, helping register votes, attending local meetings, driving people to polling places, or participating in civil engagement that will ever compare to what many of these people are now quietly having to confront internally.

[00:21:13]We just got to get it right this time.

[00:21:16]Anyways, don't be a stranger. Tell me what you think in the comments below.

[00:21:21]And y'all come back now. You here?