25 February 2025 - 7:00pm
In 2009, raucous town halls for Democratic members of Congress were a sign that Barack Obama’s “hope and change” agenda risked a public backlash. Now, it’s elected Republicans who star in viral-video town halls, as they parry complaints from an enraged crowd. Many of these complaints have focused on cuts to federal programmes as well as DOGE layoffs, and they have put some Republicans on the defensive. One Republican House member, for instance, told NBC News that he wanted to see more “compassion” from the administration going forward.
To some extent, town halls are political theatre, and progressive activists have recognised in them an opportunity to hold Republicans’ feet to the fire. But they are also part of a growing pool of evidence that the sweeping disruption of the first month of the Trump administration has started to generate some resistance. Elected in part out of dissatisfaction with the economy of the Joe Biden years, the new regime cannot afford to take its eye off kitchen-table issues.
Beyond these town halls, some polling has raised red flags. While Trump remains more popular than during his first term (as well as considerably more popular than Biden in the closing year of his presidency), his numbers have dipped a bit over the first month of his presidency. Even more importantly, approval for his economic policies has also fallen in polling. A CNN poll published last week found that 51% of Americans thought the President had gone “too far” in cutting the federal government — and 62% believed that he was not doing enough to tackle inflation. Economic anxiety can be read in other measures, too. The consumer-confidence index dropped from January to February and remains well below where it was during most of Trump’s pre-pandemic presidency.
It’s obviously too early to judge the new administration’s economic programme, or to expect its agenda to have already had a major effect on inflation. But that polling does indicate where the public’s priorities lie. The Right-wing X echo chamber might delight in battles with the “deep state”, but the majority of swing voters turned to Trump in 2024 in part because of their warm memories of the economy during his first presidency. That gives him some goodwill now that he has resumed office, but it also means that voters expect him to deliver.
Trump was partly able to take over the Republican Party almost a decade ago because of the unpopularity of the austerity agenda which had become ascendant during the Tea Party era. Voters consistently backed away from the GOP when its talk about “limited government” transformed into proposals to slash federal programmes, especially entitlements. Sweeping federal cuts today could actually revive the pains that austerity inflicted on Republican electoral prospects. If the cuts seem erratic and haphazard, public sentiment could turn quickly.
DOGE’s allies insist that the growing US debt burden needs to be confronted. However, taking America’s fiscal challenges seriously only adds to the importance of not allowing administrative battles to get in the way of a bigger economic programme. Robust, broadly shared economic growth alleviates fiscal pressures and gives policymakers credibility when proposing bigger reforms. The last time that the United States tamed its deficit and took its debt burden on a long-term downward trajectory was in the late Nineties, when the go-go economy filled federal coffers and family bank accounts. For decades, recessions have caused a spike in deficit spending.
Reasserting presidential control over administrative agencies and slashing anti-growth regulations could be the first part of a broader populist agenda to shore up working families. At a certain point, though, disruption hits diminishing returns and becomes a political liability. Fiscal sanity and Republican political fortunes may both be tied to economic renewal.
