Nate Cohn

So there's a wide range of concerns that people have about what political division might lead to.

But they're not just emotional concerns.

They're not just reacting, again,

the tone in Washington.

They think that political division and this range of political problems has real world consequences.

And I think the simplest question in the poll that we have that speaks to this is that we ask people whether America's political system can address the nation's problems or if we're just too politically divided to solve our problems.

They said by a two-to-one margin that we're too divided politically to solve our problems.

64% said too divided to solve our problems.

This is a significant change in the last few years.

We asked that same question in September of 2020, which, by the way, was not exactly some time when American politics was kumbaya.

Even at that point, 54 percent said we could still address the nation's problems.

Only 40 percent said we were too politically divided.

So we've gone in just the last five years from being maybe not exactly optimistic, but perhaps cautiously optimistic that we can still solve our problems to pretty resoundingly being pessimistic about the capacity of the political system to solve the country's problems.

Well, first, I just can't help but want to reiterate what you said.

It is a huge shift.

We don't see swings in public opinion like this that often.

I was just saying at the beginning that everything's the same.

So when you have a huge reversal in people's attitudes, it means something.

And if you look back over the long history of polling, there are other times when Americans have felt like the conditions in the country were worse.

I mean, you can imagine like during the financial crisis or something that more voters were saying that the economy was worse and thought that the country was in a worse spot.