Quinnipiac has some new polling data out this week, so why not explore for some goodies?

In the wake of the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, 79 percent of voters say the United States is in a political crisis, while 18 percent say it is not, according to a Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pea-ack) University national poll of registered voters released today.

Democrats (93 - 6 percent), independents (84 - 14 percent), and Republicans (60 - 35 percent) say the United States is in a political crisis.

Long time readers of this site may know that I'm always interested in which major political party voters are more aligned with independents. Indies aren't always "right" but I do think it can help to see which party is closer to the "mainstream" opinion. Again, mainstream doesn't always mean right, but I think it's a notable data point.

That said, this aligns with what I wrote a few weeks ago, it feels like we're boiling over.

A majority of voters (54 percent) think political violence in the United States will worsen over the next few years, while 27 percent think it will remain about the same, and 14 percent think it will ease.

Considering how many already consider this a crisis, it's not great to see the impression from 81% of Americans is that this is as good as we're going to have it for the next few years. I think it's abundantly clear what the central cause of this environment comes from, but we'll get there later on.

Fifty-three percent of voters say they are pessimistic about freedom of speech being protected in the United States, while 43 percent say they are optimistic.

This is a reversal from six months ago, when 54 percent of voters said they were optimistic and 43 percent said they were pessimistic about freedom of speech being protected in the United States, in Quinnipiac University's March 13 poll.

If I'm being salty, the biggest "free speech" win the administration can point to is that you can now call trans people and immigrants horrible things on the big social media platforms without getting punished. Other than that, I don't think anyone would reasonably say that speech is more protected today than it was a year ago. Jimmy Kimmel was a singular point we could all see happening in the open, but it's part of a wider trend.

Thirty-eight percent of voters approve of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president, while 54 percent disapprove

There's the big one, and 38% approval is historically bad. If you were curious of the number with the Democrats and Republicans removed, it's 30% approve, 61% disapprove, and 9% don't know or have an opinion.

You can read the article to see the breakdown on all topics, but I jumped right to the economy, which is what Trump supposedly was elected to fix.

the economy: 39 percent approve, while 56 percent disapprove

I can't believe that an irrational, unpredictable economic policy that's buttressed by inflationary policies isn't being received well. I know many people who before the election were like, "I don't like a lot about him, but he's going to save the economy and bring down prices." Neither has happened and people have noticed.

It’s not like Trump had ever been president before with almost identical results, so there’s really no way we could have seen this coming. 🫠

One third of voters (33 percent) approve of the way Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is handling his job as Secretary of Health and Human Services, while 54 percent disapprove, and 13 percent did not offer an opinion.

This compares to Quinnipiac University's June 11 poll when 38 percent approved, 53 percent disapproved, and 9 percent did not offer an opinion.

I continue to believe this is an unfathomably bad appointment in a sea of bad appointments.

Thirty percent of voters have a favorable opinion of the Democratic party, while 54 percent have an unfavorable opinion, and 10 percent haven't heard enough about it.

This is the lowest favorability rating for the Democratic party since the Quinnipiac University Poll began asking voters this question in 2008.

All of this bad polling, and we close with even worse polling for the Democratic party in general, and you know what, I can't blame people. I don't have a particularly good view of them right now either. It's not their policies that upset me, it's that they feel completely inept at seizing on this moment and wrestling back power in the midterms next year. Honestly, Trump will likely continue to have historically low approval ratings, the Republican policies will continue to be unpopular, and I think it will still be a coin flip whether Democrats can take back the House or Senate (I don't even dare to dream of taking them both). I'm not a political strategist, so I don't have the perfect answer, but what they're doing now is not working.

Hard cut to an episode of The Bulwark Podcast from this week where Ezra Klein was talking about politics and power:

Have we protected reproductive rights using the political strategies we have employed over the past 15 years? We have not. We have failed. We are failing. We are failing to protect trans people. We are failing to protect immigrants. We are failing to protect everybody we say we are here to protect, and we are failing to protect them because we have lost power.

And I think losing power in that way and failing in the way we have and watching the consequences be as bad as they have been, should force us in a disciplined fashion to ask, "What do we need to do to win it back?" And that means expanding the map on which we can play.

Barack Obama ran for office as both a Democrat who is much better than other Democrats at persuading people who thought they would disagree with them, that he liked them, and he understood them and he they had a place with them. I think all of us thought Barack Obama believed in gay marriage, but in 2008, Barack Obama ran to somebody opposing gay marriage. And that put him in place to name Supreme Court justices who would then create a constitutional right to gay marriage.

I know some people will read this and take it to mean we need to throw endangered groups to the curb, and I don't think that's what it's saying at all. Whatever our intentions, the real world result of how we have run recent elections has resulted in a markedly worse and more dangerous world for minorities, for trans people, and for other Americans who don't adhere to what the administration believes.

I don't want to win back power so that my party can punish the opposition, I want to win back power so that we can make a more equitable world, and given we lost all power in the federal government over the past 4 years, I think it's fair to say it's time to try something else. We don't need to change our beliefs, we need to figure out how to package them up and communicate them to voters so they buy into them as well.