According to the Gallop poll released last week, President Trump hit an all-time low in approval ratings. Only 37% of Americans approve of Trump’s performance in his second term. Even on his best issues (immigration, tariffs, national debt) his poll numbers are negative. As a political party, the Democrats find themselves in a similar situation. A Wall Street Journal poll shows that 63% of the American public view the Democrat party unfavorably (the Republicans polled slightly better). I don’t believe Trump and party leaders are suffering low ratings due to their moral righteousness or great policies. No, they are due to their ethical and political failures. Everyone needs a deep dose of repentance, a significant change in attitude and actions. I respectfully suggest the following areas that merit attention.

President Trump

1. Stop your lying – You have a troubled history with the truth. You dilute and distort it with multiple falsehoods. Some of your lies might play well with your base, but they are not true. For example, let’s look at your comments on tariffs. Tariffs are essentially taxes. You have frequently claimed that billions of dollars will flow into our country as foreign countries pay the cost of the tariffs/taxes. That is a lie. Foreign countries do not pay the tariffs that the U.S. government charges on imported goods. Foreign companies do not pay the tariffs. U.S. companies (think Walmart) pay the money. This is an additional cost added to the product. Walmart might absorb some of this cost, but to maintain their profits they need to pass on the major part of these costs to the consumer. (Even my beloved Hershey‘s Chocolate has recently announced a double digit increase in their prices.) Let me summarize. Mr. Trump, neither foreign countries nor foreign companies pay for your tariffs/taxes. American companies and we, the consumers, pay these taxes. Stop lying about your tariffs.

Some of your lies are just plain weird. Two weeks ago, you told a story about your uncle, John Trump. He was a beloved professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). That part is true, but then you fabricated a tall tale that linked your uncle with the late terrorist Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber. You claimed that your uncle taught Kaczynski at MIT and that he told you Kaczynski was a good, although arrogant student. The truth is that your uncle died in 1985 and Kaczynski was not publicly revealed as the Unabomber until 1996. In addition, there is no record of Kaczynski ever studying at MIT. Your fluid movement from reality into delusion seems to be a psychological/mental liability rather than an asset. I suggest you get help to stop these delusions.

• Admit your mistakes – We all make mistakes because “to err is human”. Many people have difficulty in accepting responsibility for their actions, but you seem to have a lot of trouble in acknowledging your mistakes. Given the power of the presidency, your mistakes are amplified and can cause great harm to millions of people. For example, you promised to cut waste and fraud from the federal government, but Elon Musk/DOGE used a chainsaw instead of the necessary scalpel. The gutting of USAID, with the resulting stoppage of medicine shipments and the rotting of food at ports around the world, has caused the premature deaths of tens of thousands of women and children. Hundreds of essential federal workers (ex. meteorologists) have been fired which increased the loss of life in the recent floods in Texas. Mr. President, be mature enough to take ownership of your decisions and these tragic results.

Mr. Trump, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t take credit for the positive aspects of the economy and, at the same time, blame Biden or Powell for the negative results. Six months into your presidency, you “own” this economy. If inflation continues to rise, you are responsible.

Your initial evaluation of people (both friends and foes) has been quite flawed. That is why you fired a record number of cabinet members during your first term in office. Your current cabinet has people who are woefully unqualified (like Hegseth and Gabbard). You praised the Russian “president” Putin for being an honorable, strong leader. What a naïve, horrible opinion! You should have listened to Marco Rubio who denounced Putin as a tyrannical authoritarian with the blood of thousands of Ukrainians on his hands. Mr. President, acknowledge your naïve mistake, and use economic sanctions to bring about a just, lasting peace in Ukraine.

Democrats

1. Learn from your mistakes – It was not so much that Trump won the 2024 presidential election (with under 50% of the vote), but that the Democrats lost it. By and large, Democrats went too far in emphasizing gender issues at the expense of bread-and-butter economic topics. Take for example, the issue of trans women competing in girls/women sports. Many Democrats felt they had to defend the trans women even though they knew they had an unfair advantage in body size, strength and speed over “biological women”. Many voters were persuaded more by “what is fair” than by “what is politically correct”. Democrats need to relearn the wisdom of the old advice, “it’s the economy, stupid”. For the 2026 mid-term elections there are many economic issues that are of vital importance to voters due to the one Big Beautiful Bill: 10 million Americans will lose their health insurance, hundreds of rural medical clinics and hospitals will close, and food will be taken away from mothers and children. This will done in order to transfer funds from the poor and middle classes to the wealthy. Democrats, raise your voice for those who have no voice!
2. Make unlikely alliances to defend freedom and democracy – As the old adage affirms, politics makes “strange bedfellows”. Marjorie Taylor Greene is not my favorite kind of politician. She is an inconsistent, extremist firebrand who says weird stuff that I do not share. Nevertheless, she does have guts. Recently, she had the courage to denounce Israel’s actions in Gaza for what they truly are: genocide. She uncovered Netanyahu for who he really is: a politician with blood on his hands who has used war to in a failed attempt to bolster his sagging poll numbers among voters in Israel. Democrats, work with MTG to stop starvation in Gaza. Work across the aisle to apply economic sanctions on the murderous Putin. Work with Republican MAGA representatives in order to bring transparency to the Epstein case and to bring justice to those young women who were victimized in his sex trafficking atrocities (and by his friends, regardless of how important they might be).  

We the People

1. We need to promote the truth, whatever the cost – more than pledging “loyalty” to a political party, or even to a president, we need to be people of the truth who seek the common good. May we rise to the challenge of this high civic calling.