[T]his reversal of fortune isn’t the work of a brilliant and effective opposition. Some of it owes to a familiar sort of presidential hubris. Trump acted as though voters chose him in 2024 because they loved everything about him, rather than because they hated inflation. Since winning, he has taken a few steps that place upward pressure on prices — warring with Iran, imposing tariffs, trying to push interest rates down by intimidating the Federal Reserve — and done little to foster the impression that he cares about the public’s top concern.

In Trump’s popularity decline, we are also seeing the interaction of our constitutional system and a president who is neither interested in nor adept at working through it.