The Washington bubble is well-known and disliked in the United States. It depicts the capital as detached from reality, filled with seasoned politicians, consultants and journalists, people for whom Donald Trump's political direction will forever remain unclear. However, another bubble exists, one which the American president has locked himself in, as concerns rise over a potential short-circuit in the economic system.
In Trump's parallel world, the start of his second term heralds an incomparable level of bliss for the billionaire and his country. On April 29, near Detroit, Michigan, Trump could hardly find enough glowing words to congratulate himself, after "the most successful first 100 days of any administration in the history of our country (...) We've just gotten started, you haven't seen anything yet!"
Delivered in the city of Warren, in a county that largely supported him, Trump's speech seemed more like a postscript to his election campaign than a solemn address. It was full of his customary digressions, time skips, blatant lies and insults toward the Democrats. The president continued to talk about Joe Biden, even organizing an oral vote to determine which nickname suited him best: Sleepy Joe or Crooked Joe. "What they're best at is cheating at election," he said about the Democrats. However, Trump made no effort to educate people about, or even give any real coherence to, his tariff policy, which has made the markets and Americans alike nervous.
A wave of polls conducted to mark the president's first 100 days as president all indicate a decline in his popularity, which now hovers around 40%. This is, in and of itself, nothing particularly alarming. However, one detail in the polls stings: Respondents' spectacular loss of faith in Trump on subjects that had previously been his strong points, particularly the economy, since December 2024. This was accompanied by growing pessimism about a possible recession. In response to all these surveys, the White House preferred to blame the thermometer rather than the fever. "They do these polls where they interview far more Democrats," Trump claimed on Tuesday. "If it were a legit poll, it would be in the 60s or 70s," in terms of the percentage of people who support him. Just as Biden had denied the severity of the cost-of-living crisis for Americans, his successor has chosen to ignore their concerns.
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