Trump's return to power has old critics and skeptics reconciling with a new 'normal'

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

73% : "Eight years ago many top tech executives treated Trump as something of a curiosity.
68% : Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., who has expressed more openness to Trump than his Democratic colleagues, announced Thursday that he will soon meet with Trump, becoming the first sitting Democratic senator to do so since Trump won last fall.
65% : "Look at Whitmer, she basically said Trump loves Michigan, too, and we will work with him to get done what is needed for Michigan," he said.
62% : Bring it all back to 'how does that (ahem, invading Greenland) lower the cost of eggs?'"In turn, Trump is basking in a relatively warm embrace.
58% : In the weeks and months after Donald Trump won his shock election victory in 2016, business and tech leaders began a steady march leftward, adopting policies and postures to counter his influence on America.
53% : But for Democrats who were working in Washington during Trump's last transition, there was acknowledgment that something very different is happening now -- and that there is a wider array of policies Democrats will be more likely to work with Trump and his allies on, with the Laken Riley Act serving as an early example.
50% : Whereas in 2016 many saw a fluke, Trump this time swept the swing states and won the popular vote.
49% : Both men have met privately with Trump in recent weeks, as have Apple CEO Tim Cook, Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai and former Alphabet President Sergey Brin.
48% : A source close to Trump said tech executives like Zuckerberg and Bezos are "smart to play ball" with him in a way they weren't eight years ago.
48% : And at MSNBC, "Morning Joe" hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, who have been known for their critical stance toward Trump in recent years, traveled to his Mar-a-Lago resort to meet with him after the election.
48% : While ABC did not elaborate on its decision to settle the suit, Scarborough and Brzezinski have defended their meeting with Trump as a useful reporting trip that helped inform their viewers.
45% : "A lot of the big 'resistance' stuff didn't really start happening until after Trump actually took office," she said.
41% : Across the spectrum of American society, leaders who once shunned Trump or battled him are now seeking to bolster their ties or extend olive branches.
38% : Media outlets reckoned with what some saw as their leading role in helping Trump get elected and pledged to be ruthless and unintimidated in their coverage of him and his administration.
38% : And five of the country's biggest banks have in recent weeks announced their withdrawals from a pandemic-era climate coalition, the latest pullback from the environmental, social and corporate governance, or ESG, initiatives that became a major target for criticism on the right.
36% : "The shift is due in no small part to how Trump won last fall.
36% : On Tuesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg cited the political climate's shift back toward Trump as his company made a flurry of moves indicating a desire to get right with the right.
36% : This person said China policy, infrastructure, drug pricing and reshoring manufacturing are all policy areas in which Democrats will seek to work with Trump while fighting "tooth and nail against mass deportations" or any efforts to "weaponize" the Justice Department.
34% : Now, executives are bending policies -- and bending a proverbial knee -- by abandoning their social and environmental agendas in manners that could appeal to Trump.
29% : Last week, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Ann Telnaes quit the paper after editors refused to publish her drawing depicting Bezos and other corporate leaders bending the knee to Trump.
28% : Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, which banned Trump from those social media platforms after the 2021 attack on the Capitol, has donated $1 million to his inaugural fund.
24% : "But without Trump's even having taken office yet, some Democrats say it's far too soon to write off the anti-Trump opposition.
18% : Trump stridently criticized Bezos and the newspaper he owns, The Washington Post.
16% : ABC paid $15 million to settle a defamation lawsuit with Trump.
12% : Governors including Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan, Gavin Newsom in California -- whom Trump has spent days blaming for devastating wildfires around Los Angeles -- Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania and JB Pritzker in Illinois try to toe a fine line.
8% : Zuckerberg, too, was a frequent target, including last year, when Trump threatened him with "life in prison" if he did anything Trump viewed as illegal during the campaign.

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