Exactly two years ago this week, Donald Trump sat down with Fox News’ Bret Baier, and the host asked the Republican what he considers the most important issue facing the country. Trump talked about his usual priorities — the economy, border security, getting “the woke out of our military,” et al. — before focusing on his principal point of concern.
“Basically, respect all over the world,” Trump said. “We don’t have it anymore. We had tremendous respect three years ago [in 2020]. We don’t have respect anymore. … We have to get that respect back. And if we don’t, we’ve got some big problems.”
This has been a rhetorical staple for the Republican for quite a while. In fact, on the campaign trail last year, he told a Pennsylvania audience, referring to his White House tenure: “We were the most respected country in the world. We were the most respected that we were ever respected. We were never more respected than we were four years ago.”
This was, by any objective measure, utterly bonkers. But now that the president has returned to power, it’s suddenly even worse. The Pew Research Center this week released the results of international surveys measuring Trump’s support in 24 nations across the globe. As the Pew report made clear, the results were awful:
Majorities in most countries also express little or no confidence in Trump’s ability to handle specific issues, including immigration, the Russia-Ukraine war, U.S.-China relations, global economic problems, conflicts between Israel and its neighbors, and climate change. When asked about Trump’s personal characteristics, most describe him as arrogant and dangerous, while relatively few see him as honest.
Broadly speaking, good news for the White House was hard to find in the data. Not only does much of the world hold Trump in low regard, but his unpopularity is tarnishing the stature of the United States, too, with favorable ratings of the U.S. dropping by double digits in several countries.
Making matters slightly worse, there’s the recent pattern to consider. While there are predictable differences across countries and regions, broadly speaking, the Pew Research Center’s data showed George W. Bush unpopular abroad, while Barack Obama’s support soared. After the Democrat left the White House, Trump’s numbers in his first term were awful, and the data bounced back under Joe Biden.
Now that the Republican is back in the Oval Office, the numbers have slid down — again.
There might very well be some who’ll suggest results like these are irrelevant. After all, Trump has prioritized an “America First” attitude, so perhaps his followers will argue that his lack of international backing shouldn’t matter.
The problem with this defense is that Trump has invested an enormous amount of time and energy making the opposite argument.
As regular readers know, it has long been foundational to the Republican’s worldview: The United States was an international laughingstock for decades, Trump has long argued, but thanks to how awesome his awesomeness is, he singlehandedly restored the nation’s global stature. It was a ridiculous idea he brought up constantly, seeing it as one of his most important accomplishments.
Even in his strange farewell address, delivered on the final full day of his first term, Trump found it necessary, one last time, to tell Americans, “The world respects us again.” The Republican added, in an apparent message for his Democratic successor, “Please don’t lose that respect.” None of this made any sense. A Pew Research Center analysis from September 2020 noted, “In several countries, the share of the public with a favorable view of the U.S. is as low as it has been at any point since the Center began polling on this topic nearly two decades ago.” Nearly five years later, Pew is showing us slipping to similar depths anew. And yet, the president can’t let go of this lie. A few weeks ago, by way of his social media platform, Trump wrote: “Our Nation is staging one if the greatest and fastest comebacks in history. In just 4 short months, we are respected again, respected like never before.” He similarly added in February, just a couple of weeks after his second inaugural, “We are respected all over the world, like never before.” All of this was the opposite of the truth. It also reinforces the fact that Trump is failing, not by some random metric, but by one of the standards that he personally elevated above all others. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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