When I fly around the country moderating focus groups for clients, regardless of the topic or audience I’m researching, I like to start each group with the same exercise. After the introductions and warm-up pleasantries, I ask each participant to write down a single word that best describes how they feel about how things are going in the country.
A few years ago, when I began doing this exercise consistently, there were some worries and frustrations that would pop up across a variety of groups: concerns about the cost of living, worry about the fate of the next generation. Other issues that arose were more highly concentrated among specific political groups, such as conservative frustration with the media or a sense that lawlessness was taking hold across the country.
But over the last year, I have noticed a pattern emerging that repeats itself regardless of the audience I am studying, where the majority of participants use the same words to describe how they feel: confused, uncertain, divided, chaotic.
Republicans and Democrats alike have very different ideas of what has created this environment — Democrats point the finger at President Trump, while Republicans mostly hold Democrats and the media responsible — but both sides use nearly identical language to describe the toll the current political environment is taking on them. Both sides speak of cringing as they see what their family members are de-friending each other over on Facebook. Both sides talk about having scaled back the amount of news they can tolerate consuming. And even those who are supporters of President Trump will note that the presidential tweets aren’t necessarily helping things.
We are a nation divided, and we are even divided about why we are divided. But if one thing unifies us, it is that there is a pervasive sense, across ideological and partisan lines, that something about the way we are living today simply feels unsustainable.
This isn’t just something I am hearing in focus groups. Stress about current events rose to become the most significant source of stress in America last year, rising to join money and work concerns at the top of the list of what keeps people up at night, and six-in-ten say social divisiveness has caused them stress.
As has long been said, “politics ain’t beanbag.” But something about this moment feels different to a lot of voters, like we are experiencing a fraying of our nation that makes it harder to imagine any of the other big issues, like cost of living or national security, seeing improvement. During much of the Obama presidency, economic issues dominated the list of “most important issues” facing the country, but the last year has seen dissatisfaction with leadership and government dysfunction overtake those concerns. More than three-in-four Americans think we are greatly divided, a figure that is the highest recorded in decades.
Which leads us to how this might affect voters this November. By all accounts, Democratic voters are fired up and eager to channel their anger at the ballot box this year. They want Trump impeached, and failing that, they want him blocked at every turn.
But most voters don’t necessarily favor more gridlock, more fireworks, more conflict. Most voters — including most independents — do not want Congress to open up impeachment hearings, though 70 percent of Democrats do. When voters were asked if they wanted a Democratic Congress that would be a “check and balance” on President Trump, Democratic voters enthusiastically say yes, but only three-in-ten independents say the same, while 21 percent wanted a Republican Congress to support the president and nearly half said they wanted to send some other kind of message.
Republicans have serious headwinds they are facing, in the form of lackluster generic ballot and job approval numbers, some troubling special election results, and the historic pendulum swing away from the president’s party in first-term midterms. But I can’t help but wonder if those independent voters I am hearing in focus groups who bemoan the constant chaos and anger and division are really going to be hungry to vote for less to get done, more conflict in Washington. And make no mistake, for at least two years, that is very likely what a Trump White House plus a Democratic Congress would lead to.
What the Democratic base wants out of their party in Congress is simple: to oppose Trump at every turn, and if possible, to impeach him. But while the swing voters who will decide this midterm may be quite skeptical of or disappointed in the president, but they’re extremely tired of feeling like nothing is getting done and all politicians can do is squabble and divide. If more division and more gridlock are what Democrats are selling, they’ll be giving Republicans an enormous gift.
