The new approval ratings don’t just measure whether Americans like Donald Trump. They measure whether the country can live with the constant noise that now defines his second presidency. The economy is wobbling between promise and anxiety, the border remains a televised flashpoint, and every policy fight feels like a cultural war. Yet for tens of millions, none of that outweighs what he represents: defiance, disruption, and a refusal to bow to the institutions they no longer trust.

That’s why the numbers cut both ways. For his opponents, they’re proof a weary nation is pulling back from the chaos. For his supporters, they’re just one more weapon in a long line of “rigged” systems stacked against him. Polls can track approval, but not conviction—and conviction is where Trump still lives. Whether that conviction can govern a fractured country is the question the numbers can’t answer, and the one America can no longer avoid.