Joe Rogan is unpleasantly surprised by Trump’s actions. He’s hardly alone

Podcast host Joe Rogan lamented the situation last week President Donald Trump an increasingly brutal and militarized campaign of mass deportations.

“I never expected to see this on television on a regular basis,” Rogan said. in questionShe references images of Trump “separating parents from their communities.”

“I really thought they were going to go after criminals,” he added, using his show, which has heterodox political views but is hugely popular. support Trump On the eve of the 2024 elections.

There are two ways to look at Rogan’s comments. First: How could Rogan not think Trump would do this? Trump spoke openly about how he was during the campaign wide and heavy This will be the initiative. He was quoted with approval by 2015 Dwight Eisenhower’s brutal deportation campaign.

But here’s the other one: Maybe Rogan isn’t alone. Maybe the extraordinary nature of what Trump is doing on so many fronts is starting to show, and ordinary political followers are starting to realize he’s gone further than they thought.

There is a conventional wisdom that while what Trump is doing now is extreme, what he promised is much the same. The American people voted for it, or at least 49.8 percent of them.

But it’s worth questioning this conventional wisdom.

In fact, on many important fronts, too many Americans seem unable to fully foresee what Trump is doing now, or at least the extent of it.

Most Americans claim this is what they expected, but…

Polls taken during Trump’s second term generally showed that most Americans at least claimed not to be surprised by the president’s actions.

One AP-NORC poll In April, 71 percent of Americans said Trump’s first few months were mostly as they expected. A. CBS News-YouGov poll It showed earlier this month that more people said Trump was doing “the same things he promised in the campaign” (52%) than those who said he was doing “different things” (48%).

But these numbers may not tell the whole story.

First, people may not like to admit they were wrong about what Trump would do. Admitting that Trump meets your expectations means you’ve misunderstood something.

Second, the CBS poll is not a strong confirmation that Trump is keeping his promises. It’s a very low bar to say Trump has generally done what he promised, and nearly half of Americans say he hasn’t.

53 percent of independents and nearly 1 in 5 of Republicans say Trump hasn’t done what he promised. These are huge numbers.

And most importantly, the percentage of Americans who say Trump has made it clear that the low bar has dropped significantly. The percentage of people who say they did “the same thing as they promised” decreased 70% in February with 61% in April This month it rose to 52%.

This shows that a large number of people are slowly starting to believe that this is not what the country signed up for.

Special policies

Between the 2024 elections and Trump’s inauguration, CNN, New York Times-Ipsos And Reuters-Ipsos poll It tested some expectations about Trump’s policies in his second term.

And in most cases, the American people were right in their predictions. Polls have shown that vast majorities think it is at least plausible that Trump will deport millions of people, impose massive tariffs, and pardon most of the defendants on January 6, 2021, as Trump has promised. A large majority also thought he would probably try to use the Justice Department against his enemies.

But even in some of these cases, it’s not hard to see how Americans might be surprised by the enormity of what Trump has done so far.

For example, Ipsos polls have shown that two-thirds of Americans say it is at least “somewhat likely” that Trump will use the government to investigate and prosecute his enemies, as he did in the cases of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

But less than 4 in 10 said it was “very likely.”

And polls have shown that most or most Republicans are betting he won’t do it. A Reuters-Ipsos poll showed 69 percent of Republicans say it is “unlikely” that Trump will use the DOJ to go after his enemies.

Although less obvious, the story is similar with deportations.

A slim majority said it was at least “very likely” that Trump would order mass deportations, while nearly half, including half of Republicans, rated it only “somewhat likely” or “unlikely,” according to a Reuters-Ipsos poll.

Only 31 percent of Americans said it was “very likely” that Trump would increase tariffs on China and Mexico, which he did.

Poll on Trump’s January 6 pardons also worth an upgrade

The CNN poll showed that 78 percent to 21 percent of Americans predict Trump will pardon most people convicted of the attack on the Capitol, as Trump has suggested.

But he just didn’t forgive most people; forgave almost everyone – including hundreds of people convicted of attacking police and several people convicted of sedition conspiracy.

And he did this after sending tons of mixed messages about his intentions, offering amnesty at some points. will be reserved for non-violent offenders.

Results

The gist here seems to be that a lot of people thought it was possible for Trump to do these things, but they didn’t think they were particularly likely.

A possible cause? Trump says a lot of things, and most of them never come to fruition. Over the years he has challenged people to choose what to take seriously and what to take literally. This is a neat political trick that allows people to believe what they want and dismiss the rest as bluster.

And the overall picture is that people are seeing exactly what they didn’t expect and don’t like anymore. On many issues, a majority of Americans said Trump had “gone too far.” there are many people who voted for him. Americans generally like Trump’s idea of ​​mass deportation policy, but recent polls show majority I didn’t like how he went about it..

A. Pew Research Center survey It has been an example of this since June.

Nearly half (48%) of Americans said Trump’s actions were worse than they expected, while nearly 2 in 10 said those actions were better than expected.

All of this suggests that Rogan wasn’t the only one unpleasantly surprised.

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