In rural America, people are tiring of 'King' Donald Trump, his war and his ballroom
The US President is now about as unpopular as his plan to build a massive ballroom at the White House
Is America fed up of Donald Trump? The polls certainly suggest that people are tiring of the man who would be king. His approval ratings have plunged – only 34 per cent of Americans approved of his performance in a Reuters/Ipsos poll released earlier this week.
I haven’t spotted a single Trump bumper sticker or Maga hat while driving round the back roads and highways of North and South Carolina. Even the XXL pick-up trucks parked nose to tailgate in Dollar General and Walmart car parks display no support for ‘47’.
The Brunswick County Democrats are determined to exploit the president’s waning popularity. The message on their giant billboard along highway I-17 gets straight to the point. “Had enough?” it asks, then suggests passing motorists go to their website and join up.
‘Thought you Brits didn’t like us’
Tellingly, the people we speak to as we travel from Raleigh to Atlanta via the Atlantic coast seem embarrassed by their commander-in-chief. “Trump,” they shrug, “what can you say?" and they thank us for coming to America.
“We thought you Brits didn’t like us anymore,” said Bill, an Uber driver who dreams of visiting England one day to “find a ghost”. “A ghost?” I ask. “Yes ma’am, I am going to find me a haunted house and capture one of your ghosts and bring it back to the US with me.”
Whether Bill’s ghost would get through US customs is doubtful. After all, haggis is banned because it contains sheep lung, and woe betide any traveller who tries to smuggle in Cuban cigars, feta cheese or absinthe. Phantoms of long-dead English folk may be too out there for a border agency that struggles with offal.
But the ghost of an earlier America had a warm welcome from President Trump at the White House this week when King Charles arrived to mark the 250th anniversary of America’s independence. As the two heads of state stood to attention for the press, I was wandering round an exhibition in the small coastal city of New Bern – incidentally the birthplace of Pepsi-Cola.
In 1663, King Charles II granted a vast tract of land in North America, including the Carolinas, to eight of his supporters who became known as the Lord Proprietors. Nearly a century later, the European settlers, many from Scotland, had had enough of British rule and on August 25, 1774, the first Provincial Congress in America was held in New Bern.
A few months later, the British governor was forced to flee his post. The rest, as they say, is history. For on July 4, 1776, North Carolina joined the 12 other colonies along the Atlantic Coast, from Connecticut to Georgia, and declared independence from Britain. The United States of America was born.
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Demographic changes
It is perhaps a little ironic then that the land of the free is now ruled by a man whose mother – Mary Anne MacLeod – only arrived in America from the Western Isles aged 18. She had what her son describes as a huge crush on the present King Charles. “My mother… she loved the royal family… I also remember her saying, very clearly ‘Charles, look, young Charles, he’s so cute’. My mother had a crush on Charles, can you believe it?” he said on Tuesday.
But despite Trump’s own Scots and German heritage – his grandfather Friedrich Trump was born in the 19th-century kingdom of Bavaria – the demography of America is changing before his very eyes. Legal immigration is no longer dominated by people fleeing Europe for a better life, but comes primarily from Mexico, India, China and the Philippines.
By 2050, the US is projected to have largest Spanish speaking population in the world, and in 2028, Secretary of State Marco Rubio could be America’s first Hispanic president. Rubio, or Vice-President JD Vance, or whoever the Republicans' choice is for the next presidential election, will have a tough job to win back the trust of the American people after four years of Trump 2.
Iran War fuelling inflation
The president’s war against Iran is proving very unpopular, and not just because gas (fuel) prices have surged to a national average of $4.30 a gallon. As the Defence Secretary, Pete Hegseth, revealed to Congress on Wednesday, “Operation Epic Fury” has cost $25 billion so far, mostly in bombs and missiles.
But, he argued, Iran is not the country’s biggest adversary. The real enemy is the “feckless and defeatist words” of the Democrats, and even some Republicans.
The former Fox News presenter’s bellicose appearance will have done nothing to reassure Americans that their government is putting their interests first. The rising cost of oil prices will fuel inflation, threatening a recession, and Trump’s Iran ‘adventure’ shows no sign of ending any time soon.
And his obsession with building a “Military Top Secret Ballroom” at the White House has reached fever pitch. In the aftermath of last weekend’s assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Trump took to social media to declare the incident would not have happened if the event had taken place in his, as yet unbuilt, ballroom.
The people disagree. A Washington Post poll showed that nearly two-thirds of Americans oppose the project, which has already seen the demolition of the 123-year-old East Wing of the White House.
The People’s House is more than just the official residence of the president of the day. It represents a free America – the land of opportunity that the settlers of North Carolina hoped to build when they rejected British rule 250 years ago. Their descendants may have warmly welcomed the current British monarch this week, but they have no appetite for King Donald I.
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