When the story of Donald Trump’s presidency is written, it’s quite likely that the h-word will figure prominently: hubris.
Look no further than how he’s tried to apply his name — and aesthetic — across America and the government.
During a time of significant ongoing economic stress, he decided to suddenly bulldoze the East Wing of the White House to build a big, fancy ballroom to hold parties with powerful people.
And even as his popularity is sinking to lows rarely seen in recent American history, he’s plowed forward with his highly unorthodox efforts to affix his moniker and likeness to all manner of government buildings and products — ranging from the Kennedy Center, the US Institute of Peace, to National Park passes, savings accounts, a prescription drugs website, a new class of battleships, fighter jets, a visa for rich people, gold coins, dollars bills and, now, to passports.
Up until now, we’ve had little polling by which to gauge how these initiatives landed with the American people. But as it turns out, Americans seem to regard these things as about as ghastly as they might seem.
Initial polling about the ballroom showed it overwhelmingly unpopular.
But even at the time, you could have been forgiven for thinking that was temporary. Maybe it was just jarring for Americans to see the demolition of a large portion of the White House. Maybe they’d see the value of a larger events space — that Trump says is privately funded — for a White House complex that needs it.
Or maybe not.
A new Washington Post-ABC News poll found Americans hate it just as much today as they did back in October.
While they opposed the East Wing demolition and new ballroom project 56%-28% back then, they oppose it today 56%-28%.
Republicans seemed to sense an opportunity on this over the weekend. They jumped headlong into a pro-ballroom campaign after the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner at the Washington Hilton hotel.
The idea — at least as it was initially pitched — was that the ballroom would be a more secure venue for such events (never mind that it wouldn’t actually work for this dinner, for a host of reasons). They even decided to float spending $400 million in taxpayer money on it, not the private donations Trump has long said would fund it.
The Post-ABC poll was conducted both before and after the shooting. But although it found a modest rise in GOP support for the ballroom afterward, a statistical analysis showed that, overall, there was “no significant change in opinion associated with the shooting.”
Americans still opposed the ballroom 2-to-1. And those who felt strongly about it still opposed it 3-to-1 – just like before the shooting.
The verdict in the poll was even worse for two other Trump attempts at ornamentation.
Trump’s plan to build a 250-foot triumphal arch between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery?
Americans oppose it 52%-21%.
Only a bare majority of Republicans (51%) support it, and independents oppose it by nearly a 5-to-1 margin (57%-12%).
(The proposed arch, like the ballroom, has also received overwhelmingly negative public feedback to the relevant regulatory commission.)
And the US Treasury’s move to put Trump’s signature on paper money – the first time that’s ever happened with a sitting president?
Americans oppose that even more, 68%-12%.
Even Republicans lean against that one by double-digits, 42%-28%. And there’s almost no support outside of MAGA Republicans. (Non-MAGA Republicans oppose it 64%-10%.)
There’s also new data Friday from the Pew Research Center, which showed just 9% of Americans said it was appropriate to name government buildings after Trump while he’s still president.
Another 21% said it would be acceptable after he’s out of office, while 50% said it wasn’t acceptable at all. (The remaining 19% offered no verdict.)
Apart from these surveys, there’s not much other data on Trump’s efforts to plaster his name on everything.
And a CNN poll back in January, after the Kennedy Center board voted to put Trump’s name on the building, would seem to confirm Americans don’t like his overall “changes to cultural institutions” like the Kennedy Center and Smithsonian.
Fully 62% of Americans — including 30% of Republicans — said he had “gone too far” with those changes.
Out of eight different Trump initiatives tested, that was the largest “gone too far” number.
In the world of political analysis, it can sometimes seem like nothing Trump does hurts him. After all, his approval rating had proven resilient, if low, for a long time.
But sometimes, the actions that seem kind of crazy to the naked eye do come off that way to the American people.
And now that the president is bleeding support more than ever over the Iran war and high gas prices, it’s clear that gilding DC and adorning the US government with more Trump isn’t helping.
This story has been updated with additional polling.
