Trump's approval rating if he became a dictator?

[The Mikado]

Real dictators don't have <50% approval ratings...

For the purposes of this poll we'll assume he doesn't (or didn't yet) crack down on the polling companies.

Cracking down on the polling companies isn't the issue.

You get a call in the middle of the evening from a stranger saying "Do you approve of President-for-Life Trump, long may he reign, and his restoration of the Republic by seizing power away from the treacherous Democrats, corrupt bureaucrats, and elderly judges?"

Your response totally is "Yes, of course. Hail Trump!"

[The Mikado]

Leave it to Atlas to obsess over the minutiae of "OMG how would we know his real approval rating in a dictatorship because the polling companies would get the guillotine", rather than just assuming OP is asking what his actual approval rating would be among the people based on internal/individual opinions.

In societies with authoritarian regimes, it is possible for the people to develop something akin to Stockholm Syndrome and become comfortable/indifferent/apathetic about their state of oppression, especially when combined with nationalist fervor. The Chinese government is generally very popular in China except for among some beleaguered minority groups.

Yes, talking about a crackdown on polling companies is silly and irrelevant, but it is perfectly reasonable to discuss how a dictatorial regime could actually be more popular than a democratic regime, especially if the majority basically retains its day-to-day civil liberties.

If Trump were savvier, he could pull this off quite well. Everyone hates Congress and views them as useless windbags. If he pulled off a coup that dissolved Congress and replaced it with a hand-selected group of sycophants, he probably could get away with that in describing it as a much-needed update to the Constitutional system...if he were popular and credible to begin with.

I think the last American President who would've had a credible shot at making himself a dictator, had he been so inclined, would've been FDR in his first term.