SCRANTON (TNS) — In November, Donald Trump won the presidency with 49.8 percent of the popular vote. That was up three percentage points from his 2020 loss to Joe Biden, and 3.7 more than his win over Hillary Clinton in 2016. Like or dislike him, more than 214.5 million votes were cast for him in the last three elections, during which he has only gained support at the ballot box. Those are amazing numbers, an unprecedented demonstration of notoriety for political candidates.

Last week, the latest approval ratings, from Quinnipiac University, found Trump’s approval rating at 41% less than three months into his latest term. More than half the country — a whopping 53% — disapproved. Going back to Trump’s inauguration in January, his approval rating from the same pollster is down 5 percentage points, and his disapproval rating is up 10. Approval is down 4% and disapproval up 4% from February.

It’s one poll, of course but it’s in line with the results of others taken in recent weeks. Even the latest poll from right-leaning Rasmussen Reports finds 50% disapprove of Trump’s job performance. What’s clear is half the nation rallied at the polls to elect him, but just a shade more than two out of five approve of what he’s doing just five months later. It’s a stark dichotomy.

Presidential approval ratings can be fickle, affected as much by time and place and world events as they are the quality of work the commander in chief is doing and the policies being implemented. Whatever significance those polls have politically, they lack much meaning in practice — especially with a president less than three months into his second four-year term with a Congressional majority and an agenda he’s desperate to implement.

However, the most recent results for Trump tell a story about the public that often goes unnoticed in Washington, and show the value of the presidential trait that matters most to Americans: Consistency, especially in challenging times.

It brings up an interesting question: Is it Trump’s sweeping tariffs causing the most consternation among Americans. Or is it more of what he did last week: Instituting them, watching as market chaos unfolded, and then pulling them back without warning? It’s not a power granted in the Constitution, for sure. But, it has played out so often over the last 236 years that ensuring national morale is high traditionally is a job that falls on the president. For 80 years, polling agency Gallup has measured presidential approval with regularity. The highest presidential approval ratings over that time almost always coincided with times the country felt galvanized by a foreign threat, assured by the state of the economy or comfortable with its place as a world power.

Harry Truman, who left office with 22% job approval seven years later, spiked an 87% approval rating in June of 1945, with the nation still celebrating V-E Day and steamrolling toward a conclusion to World War II in Japan. Both the Bushes — George H.W. in February 1991 and George W. in September 2001 — calmly and with steely resolve united the country behind war efforts. Even as the House voted to impeach him over the Monica Lewinski scandal, an undeterred Bill Clinton’s highest rating (73%) came with the economy booming in December 1998.

There’s no science to it. Presidential approval is just about how the nation feels about itself. If you subscribe to that theory that the general population of America wants a sense of calm and assurance — especially in the face of challenge — from its president, it makes sense why Trump is such a force at the polls, but remains one of the few modern presidents who hasn’t managed to get his approval ratings above 50% for any significant length of time.

Morale is important, and morale can be built. But an inconsistent approach to implementing ideas that got him elected doesn’t create the kind of foundation on which that type of stability can be built. Much can change for the better in the next four years.

But, it can get worse too. Which way it goes is in Donald Trump’s hands, and if he wants to get more than just a base that follows blindly behind him feeling confident, he needs to consider the art of the message in the same way he pushes the art of the deal.