Podcast host Joe Rogan last week bemoaned the state of President Donald Trump’s increasingly brutal and militarized mass deportation campaign.
“I did not ever anticipate seeing that on TV on a regular basis,” Rogan said, referring to images of Trump “ripping parents out of their communities.”
“I really thought they were just going to go after the criminals,” added Rogan, who sports heterodox political views but used his hugely popular show to endorse Trump on the eve of the 2024 election.
There are two ways to look at Rogan’s comments. One is: How in the world did Rogan not think Trump would do this? While campaigning, Trump spoke openly about how expansive and heavy-handed this initiative would be. As far back as 2015, he approvingly cited Dwight Eisenhower’s brutal deportation campaign.
But the other is: Maybe Rogan isn’t alone. Maybe the extraordinary nature of what Trump is doing, on many fronts, is starting to set in and casual political followers are beginning to notice he’s going further than they countenanced.
There’s a certain conventional wisdom right now that, while what Trump is doing is extreme, it’s pretty much what he promised. The American people voted for this — or at least 49.8% of them.
But it’s worth calling that conventional wisdom into question.
In fact, on several key fronts, large numbers of Americans didn’t seem to fully anticipate what Trump is now doing – or at least, the extent of it.
Most Americans claim it’s what they expected, but …
Polling during Trump’s second term has generally shown most Americans at least claim to be unsurprised by what the president is doing.
An AP-NORC poll in April showed 71% of Americans said Trump’s first few months had been mostly what they expected. A CBS News-YouGov poll earlier this month showed more said Trump is doing “the same things he promised in the campaign” (52%) than said he was doing “different things” (48%).
But these numbers might not tell the whole story.
For one, people might not like to admit they were wrong about what Trump would do. Admitting Trump defied your expectations would imply that you got things wrong.
And two, the CBS poll isn’t a particularly strong affirmation of Trump 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.
Fully 53% of independents and even about 1 in 5 Republicans say Trump isn’t doing what he promised. Those are large numbers.
