Political commentator Thom Hartmann has implored the American people to see through Donald Trump’s attempted displays of strength. “Don’t believe it,” Hartmann warned in a recent op-ed.

All of the grandstanding, Hartmann explained, from the blatant disregard for the law to his attempts to distract from the flailing economy to his utilization of the military to invade American citizens, is “precisely because he’s so extraordinarily weak.”

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He then compared the president to other strongman leaders and said, “None were as weak as Trump is today when they succeeded in consolidating enough power to eliminate their challengers and lock down the populace.”

He said those who succeeded at destroying democracy in their countries – such as Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orbán, Benito Mussolini, and Adolf Hitler – had extremely high approval ratings as they rose to prominence and also solved certain national crises on their way to absolute power. Hitler, he said, for example, created “massive public works and social welfare programs” that helped drastically reduce unemployment.

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But Trump’s approval ratings are dismal, Hartmann said. “He didn’t even break 50 percent of the popular vote in 2024, and lost the popular vote in 2016.”

“As of Oct. 20, 2025, 44.2 percent approved and 52.1 percent disapproved of his presidency, according to Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin. The RealClearPolitics average gives him around 45 percent, while Gallup finds 40 percent, making him one of the least popular U.S. presidents at this stage in all of our history.”

He re-emphasized that “unlike his predecessors or authoritarians in other countries that lost their democracies, his base remains intense but small; there’s no evidence of majoritarian enthusiasm existing outside of his core partisan bloc.”

Even more, he pointed out that Republicans who defy him tend to see their popularity rise.

“Fear, it turns out, is the cement that’s holding the GOP together under Trump,” he said. Trump has made it more than clear he will punish his enemies and reward his admirers, and so far, Hartmann said, that tactic is working to keep his party in line.

But maintaining power through fear “is a dangerous game,” he said, and “politicians like Trump… eventually find themselves trapped by the very fear they’ve used to paralyze their party members into compliance or silence.”

His scramble for power and the intensity of his actions in the first year of his presidency prove that he “knows he only has a short window before the country truly fights back against his strongman attempts to turn America into a third-world tinpot dictatorship.”

Hartmann expressed optimism that Trump will be one of the 75% of wannabe dictators with failed attempts to destroy democracy in wealthy nations.

“So, take heart,” he concluded. “The No Kings marches proved both Trump’s widespread unpopularity and the fearlessness of an American public echoing over two centuries of our nation standing up to tinpot despots and wannabe dictators.”

“We Americans have never tolerated a king or a dictator, and we’re not about to start now.”

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