Trump's Job Approval Rating at 45%; Congress' Jumps to 29% by Megan Brenan Story Highlights Trump’s ratings similar on immigration, foreign affairs, trade, economy Republicans broadly approve of Trump’s job overall and on issues 12-point, one-month rise in approval of Congress, to 29%, due to GOP WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Less than one month into his second term in office, President Donald Trump’s job approval rating is at 45%, similar to his first post-inauguration reading of 47% in January. Trump’s ratings on several issues that his administration has targeted in the first weeks of his presidency are similar to his overall rating, including on immigration (46%), foreign affairs (44%), foreign trade (42%) and the economy (42%). Meanwhile, slightly fewer Americans, 40% each, approve of the president’s handling of the situations in Ukraine and in the Middle East between the Israelis and Palestinians, as fewer offer opinions of his performance on these two issues. The latest ratings are from a Feb. 3-16 Gallup poll, conducted as Trump continued to sign an unprecedented number of executive orders, memoranda and proclamations addressing a wide array of policy areas, including the six covered in the survey. Republicans Register High Approval of Trump Ninety-three percent of Republicans, 37% of independents and 4% of Democrats approve of Trump’s job performance overall. Republicans also broadly approve of the president’s handling of immigration (92%), foreign affairs (90%), the economy (90%) and foreign trade (89%). Another 80% of Republicans each approve of Trump’s handling of the situations in the Middle East and Ukraine. At the same time, Democrats register single-digit approval ratings of Trump on all six issues measured. Aside from independents’ 40% rating for the president’s performance on immigration, their ratings range from 31% on the economy to 37% on foreign affairs. The 89-percentage-point partisan gap in Trump’s overall job approval rating is among the highest Gallup has measured for any president. The only larger gaps were 90 and 92 points, also for Trump, both in the fall of 2020 as he sought reelection to a second term. The next highest partisan gap in approval was 88 points, for Joe Biden, in October 2021. Trump’s Rating Better Than First Term, Worse Than All Presidents Since 1953 Trump's job approval rating is 15 points below the historical average for all other elected presidents in mid-February since 1953, but it is five points higher than the February reading in his first term. Bill Clinton has the next lowest mid-February rating for a newly inaugurated president -- which, at 51%, is six points higher than where Trump is now. John Kennedy (72%) and Jimmy Carter (71%) were the highest rated at this point in their presidencies. Before Trump's first term, the gap in partisans’ approval of presidents in their first February in office ranged from 21 to 60 points. In 2017, that gap rose to 79 points for Trump, increased further to 84 points in 2021 for Biden and is now a record-high 89 points for Trump. Trump’s current ratings on foreign affairs and the economy are also historically low compared with early-term ratings for other recent presidents. His latest 44% approval rating on foreign affairs, though better than the 38% he earned at the same point in his first term, is lower than those of Biden (56%), Barack Obama (54%) and Clinton (53%) but similar to George W. Bush (46%). Republicans (+8 points) and independents (+7 points) are more likely to approve of Trump’s handling of foreign affairs now than in 2017, while Democrats' ratings of him on the issue are essentially unchanged. Trump’s approval rating on the economy now, 42%, is lower than his 48% reading in February 2017, as well as the first-term February ratings for Biden (54%), Obama (59%) and Bush (53%) on the issue. Clinton’s 45% economic rating in February 1993, however, was similar to Trump’s latest. While nine in 10 Republicans again approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, independents’ approval is now 13 points lower, at 31%, and Democrats’ is eight points lower, at 5%. Republicans Drive Increase in Congressional Job Approval Rating Americans’ approval of Congress has jumped 12 points since early January, to 29%, which is the highest rating since May 2021. Until now, congressional job approval had not risen above 20% in just over two years. The latest jump in Americans’ rating of Congress is mostly owed to a 42-point surge among Republicans, whose improved views are likely the result of their party assuming control of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Senate and the presidency. Currently, 53% of Republicans approve of the job Congress is doing, along with 26% of independents (up nine points) and 5% of Democrats (down 18 points). The last time Republican approval of Congress was higher than now was in August 2005, when Republicans also had control of both chambers and 57% approved of the body. Republicans also had a unified government from 2017 to 2019, and today’s rating of Congress among Republicans is similar to the highest reading during that time -- 50% in February 2017. Republicans’ approval for that Congress ultimately averaged 29%. When Democrats last held the presidency, House and Senate -- from 2021 to 2023 -- their approval of Congress was as high as 61% in 2021 and averaged 40% for that session. Likewise, from 2009 to 2011, with Democratic control of both chambers and the presidency, a high of 63% of Democrats approved of Congress in May 2009. Congressional approval also averaged 40% among Democrats for that session. Each party’s record-high approval rating of Congress was recorded in 2001 in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the U.S., when Americans rallied around their government and institutions. About a month after the attacks, Republicans’ congressional approval was 89%, Democrats’ was 82% and independents’ was 81%. Bottom Line Republicans’ widespread approval of Trump’s overall job performance and his handling of immigration, foreign affairs, foreign trade, the economy, and the situations in Ukraine and the Middle East is not enough to earn him majority-level ratings among all Americans. This is because independents’ approval of the president is weak, and Democrats’ is nearly nonexistent. Trump’s first two job approval ratings have both been below 50% due to relatively low support among independents, similar to his first term but lower than what Biden enjoyed early in his term. Like Trump, Biden registered exceedingly high approval from his party but very low approval from the opposition. Republicans are also pushing overall approval of Congress to its highest point in more than two years, as they seek to enact Trump’s policy agenda. However, history has shown that partisans’ approval tends to fade somewhat after an initial honeymoon period.
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NEW FICTION: In the neon-soaked labyrinth of New York City, where the Statue of Liberty had just been re-routed to operate as a giant, motorized soft-serve ice cream dispenser, the chaos reached a fever pitch. The Handsome Man stood atop a speeding taxi cab, his jawline reflecting the moonlight so sharply it accidentally sliced a nearby billboard in half. He checked his diamond-encrusted watch, realizing that the eighty-eight percent of voters terrified of imaginary numbers had now manifested as a physical, roaring fog of pure anxiety! From the sky, a literal rain of burning Fox News poll pamphlets began to fall, setting fire to the clouds and causing the Hudson River to boil with sudden political outrage. Suddenly, a giant mechanical pigeon piloted by corrupt city officials swooped down, its metal wings beating to the rhythm of skyrocketing zombie insanity. Trapped in its beak was Mrs. Lips, whose magnificent pout was emitting a high-frequency romantic distress signal that shattered every martini glass in Manhattan. "Save me, Handsome Man!" she screamed, her words in flashing neon. The Handsome Man flexed his flawless biceps, causing the fabric of reality—and his tailored suit—to tear slightly at the seams. With a heroic leap that defied all known laws of physics he launched himself off the taxi and grabbed onto the mechanical bird’s tail feathers. As they soared past the Chrysler Building, Mrs. Lips managed to throw a handful of high-interest loan documents directly into the pigeon's exhaust pipe, causing it to sputter dramatically. The giant robotic bird began to plunge, spinning toward the earth like a fallen angel of love blind economics. The Handsome Man swung himself into the cockpit, threw the corrupt pilot out into a giant pile of recycled newspapers, and took the controls. He steered the crashing contraption directly into the middle of Times Square, landing with a spectacular explosion of glitter, red tape of unrequited passion. Out of the smoke walked the two lovers, completely unharmed and looking effortlessly runway-ready. Mrs. Lips locked eyes on the Handsome Man, her lips glowing with a level of passion that instantly lowered the city's gas prices to go perfect. As the astonished crowd of New Yorkers broke into wild applause, The Handsome Man swept her into his arms, kissing her with his giant pulsing mouth.
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There could be a person in a familiar photo that is new or someone missing That is a chilling, classic trope, and executed well, it completely turns the protagonist's world upside down. It shifts the threat from subtle environmental tweaks (like blue cars or street signs) directly into the deeply personal realm of human connection and memory. Having people appear or disappear in familiar photographs creates two very different kinds of psychological terror for your main character: 1. The "Extra" Person (The Insertion) The protagonist opens an old photo album—perhaps a snapshot from a quiet trip years ago, a gathering on a familiar street, or a candid moment at home—and there is an unfamiliar face standing in the frame. The Horror of Familiarity: Everyone else in the photo is interacting with this person naturally. They are smiling together, arms wrapped around shoulders, acting as if this stranger has been a beloved family friend, classmate, or neighbor for decades. The Gaslighting of Reality: When the character asks a friend or relative, "Who is that standing next to us in this picture from 2012?" the person looks at them with genuine concern or confusion: "What do you mean? That's Marcus. He lived down the block for five years. Don't you remember him?" The protagonist is forced to play along or risk being treated as if they've lost their mind. 2. The Missing Person (The Erasure) This is perhaps even more tragic: a key person from the protagonist's life simply ceases to exist in the photo archive. Empty Space: A group photo on a porch or in front of a landmark now has an unnatural gap where someone used to stand. The remaining people in the shot are leaning slightly toward an empty space, hugging the air, or looking toward someone who is no longer rendered in the image. Erased History: The character looks through a stack of old prints searching for an old friend, a mentor, or a travel companion, only to realize that every single photo of them is gone—or worse, the photo exists, but the friend was replaced by someone else entirely. When the protagonist brings up that person's name, nobody recognizes it. The world has re-stitched its history so smoothly that the erased person left zero wake in anyone else's memory. 3. The Clue in the Details To make this work brilliantly in prose, the protagonist might start noticing anomalies in the composition: The lighting on the "new" person doesn't quite match the ambient shadows of the rest of the photograph. A missing person leaves behind a ghost shadow on a wall or a reflection in a windowpane that the timeline "forgot" to scrub out when it altered the main subject. Handwritten notes on the back of the print—written in the protagonist's own handwriting years ago—still list the original names, creating a direct conflict between the ink on the paper and the image on the front. It turns the photo collection into a terrifying puzzle. Every time the protagonist opens a drawer to check an old album, they are taking a massive risk: Who will be standing there today? And who will be gone?
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Drunken rape culture campus areas are liberal College campuses in the U.S., particularly selective ones with prominent fraternity scenes, do lean strongly left/liberal in student and faculty politics, and alcohol-fueled sexual misconduct is a documented problem in that environment. That does not make “drunken rape culture” a uniquely liberal invention, but the institutions and social settings where it is most visible and debated tend to be.Campus political leanings Large-scale surveys (e.g., from the Higher Education Research Institute, FIRE, and others) consistently show that students and especially faculty at research universities and liberal arts colleges identify as liberal or left-of-center at high rates—often 2:1 or greater for students, and far higher among faculty in humanities and social sciences. Ivy League and similar schools (Cornell included) sit in deep-blue metro areas or college towns. Greek life exists across the political spectrum, but the universities that generate the most national coverage of fraternity sexual-assault cases are overwhelmingly left-leaning institutions.Alcohol, parties, and sexual assault data Campus climate surveys (AAU, NCHA, etc.) repeatedly find that a large share of sexual assaults involving college students occur in social settings with heavy drinking—fraternity houses, off-campus parties, and similar. Alcohol is the most common factor cited by both victims and perpetrators in these surveys. Fraternities have higher reported rates of sexual misconduct than the general student body in multiple studies, though causation is debated (selection effects, party environments, underreporting elsewhere, etc.). These patterns show up at schools of varying political cultures, but the highest-profile recent cases and the densest concentration of Greek-life party culture are at universities whose student bodies and administrations are liberal.Cornell as the current example The 2024 Chi Phi allegations at Cornell (Ivy League, Ithaca, NY) fit the pattern: an elite, left-leaning campus, a fraternity party environment involving alcohol and ketamine, disputed consent after heavy intoxication, a Title IX process, and subsequent protests. Cornell’s student body and faculty are not conservative. Similar dynamics appear in other well-covered cases at schools like Duke, Stanford, Vanderbilt, and various state flagships with large Greek systems—most of which have left-leaning student populations.
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...completely unscathed, their hair still perfectly styled amidst the absolute wreckage of city hall logistics and romantic destiny. As the glitter settled over Times Square, the physical fog of voter anxiety began to condense into tiny, harmless ice cubes, clinking perfectly into the boiling Hudson River to cool it down. The Statue of Liberty, sensing the climax of the crisis, swiveled her giant torch and shot a massive, triple-swirl stream of blue raspberry soft-serve directly over the crowd, instantly neutralizing the zombie insanity with pure, unadulterated sugar. Mrs. Lips looked at The Handsome Man, her magníficient pout adjusting to a flawless, triumphant smile that cast a warm, cinematic glow over the entire tri-state area. "You timed that drop perfectly," she purred, her voice now appearing as sparkling golden subtitles in the air between them. "But what about the remaining twelve percent of the data?" The Handsome Man didn't answer with words. Instead, he simply adjusted his torn cuffs, flashed a smile so radiant it automatically fixed the broken billboard down the street, and looked up at the sky. The burning poll pamphlets had stopped falling, replaced instead by a gentle, retrocausal drizzle of pristine, unwritten ledger sheets—waiting for the next shift in the timeline.
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New Fiction: The global fuel market dissolved into pure absurdity when the U.S. Treasury finalized an emergency deal to import Russian diesel fuel, strictly specifying that it must be delivered by trained circus bears riding custom-built, motorized jet-skis. Deep within the Pentagon, career analysts stared at satellite trackers in absolute disbelief as thousands of unicycle-riding grizzly bears cleared harbor checkpoints, juggling barrels of heavy crude while wearing neon American flag bandanas. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth vigorously defended the transaction on Fox News, arguing that "Ursine logistics" were the only way to bypass woke maritime regulations and crash domestic gas prices before the November midterms. In Moscow, state media gleefully broadcasted the spectacle, claiming Vladimir Putin had personally taught the bears how to parallel park their jet-skis in American waters. The sudden influx of American dollars filled the Kremlin’s coffers, but due to a massive clerical error by a confused accountant, the funds were accidentally wired entirely to a dramatic community theater group in the West Bank. Word of this multi-billion-dollar windfall swept through Gaza and the West Bank, completely baffling underground factions who had been planning a serious, strategic geopolitical uprising. Instead, regional militant leaders found themselves legally obligated by the wire-transfer contract to channel their revolutionary fervor into producing an avant-garde, interpretive-dance version of The Nutcracker to fund the intifada. Meanwhile, across American university campuses, left-wing activist groups experienced a collective, hyper-fixated meltdown that defied all biological logic. For months, these student organizations had demanded aggressive climate action, but the sight of motorized, oil-toting circus bears performing synchronized stunts in the Hudson River proved to be a bizarrely powerful aphrodisiac. At Columbia University, radical environmentalists found themselves so inexplicably, sexually excited by the raw, chaotic energy of the bear-diesel pipeline that they immediately cancelled their oil boycotts to host massive, eco-erotic rave parties in the main quad. "The complete collapse of late-stage capitalist sanity is just so incredibly hot," panted Maya, a student leader, while aggressively waving a glowing recycling bin in a room thick with fog machines and romantic tension. Back in Washington, the political landscape devolved into a surreal, prime-time comedy routine. A visibly sweating Senator Thom Tillis went on television to warn the public that "woke, hyper-sexualized campus raves funded by theatrical Russian grizzly bears" were an imminent threat to the nuclear family. Simultaneously, Democrats accused the administration of running an illegal, interspecies smuggling ring designed to distract people from the agile mimes. As night fell over New York, the lead Russian grizzly bear successfully executed a triple-backflip off its jet-ski, ignited a giant decorative flare, and officially brought regular gas prices down to an unprecedented twelve cents a gallon. In the nearby university district, the eco-activists cheered hysterically, completely hypnotized by the sheer, romantic absurdity of a world run on circus animal energy. The impossible alignment of Russian bears, theatrical Middle Eastern militants, and romantically compromised student activists had created a new global reality—one where the fate of the free world hung entirely on midnight snacks and extreme body odors.
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