The Gallup Organization has taken the national pulse as the year comes to an end and we see a country sharply divided on the policies of the President who will lead us into the celebration of the nation’s 250th birthday.
The Gallup poll shows only 24% of Americans are satisfied with the job Donald Trump has done in his first year back in office. Most, 74%, are dissatisfied.
Those numbers are pretty astounding but here’s one that says more about our national mood, I think.
Only two percent had no opinion.
TWO PERCENT!!!
Can you recall a public opinion survey in which only two percent had no opinion on a question?
Can you recall a public opinion survey that showed such a sharp difference of opinion on the performance of a President? Not even Richard Nixon on the eve of his resignation was this low—66%. Harry Truman, in December, 1952—the month before left office was this far in the toilet—56%. Jimmy Carter was at 55%. George W. Busch was unfavorably impressive to 61% of those surveyed. Trump was at 62% unfavorable when he left office in 2021.
The ”undecideds” have been in single digits beginning with Ronald Reagan. Joe Biden was at 6%.
The most divisive President in all the years that public polling has measured voter satisfaction is so divisive that only two percent have no opinion. He continues to promise big goals that he has no plans for reaching. He’s been doing it for a decade and a lot of people are tired of big talk, little results, and repeated lies about the present.
President Trump shows signs of being an albatross around Republican necks for the mid-term elections. He still has time to make a big recovery but he hasn’t shown any signs of reversing his courses or suffering a sudden outbreak of truth. His poll numbers indicate a great many people who bought into the MAGA nonsense have had it with him. It is hard to think of how our country is greater because of his presence, unless you’re very, very rich.
He’s doing end of the year interviews with some media, even some of those he thinks are terrible and should have federal licenses yanked. He was on WABC Radio in New York last week spouting one his favorite lies:
“Gasoline is down much more than they say. We’re down to $2 a gallon inmany states. It’s like a massive…it’s like a really big tax cut. What we’ve done with gasoline and gasoline and energy generally is way down.”
One of the problems with interviewing Trump is that nobody seems to ask a followup question. In his press gaggles on Air Force One or outside the White House, the reporters all have their questions they want him to answer (or often, not to answer). In my days as a Capitol reporter, I had my questions to ask quite often, too. But also quite often, I asked a question based on the answer to another reporter’s question. If I had been interviewing Trump, I would have asked, “You’ve been saying for some time that gas in below $2 a gallon now in many states. Which states are you talking about?”
He would not have been able to answer because he was lying as usual. We checked Triple-A’s gas prices report Saturday afternoon after hearing Trump’s claim. The lowest price for a gallon of regular is in Oklahoma where the average price was $2.24.4. It also is the only state below THREE dollars for a gallon of premium, $2.96.8. The national average for a gallon of unleaded is $2.83.6.
Other prices are down, he says. Twenty-four percent might agree but the Bureau of Labor Statistics comes down on the side of the 74%. The bureau’s most recent report showed beef roast is up 19.1% this year; Coffee costs 17.3% more and if you want to make a hamburger for dinner tonight, that ground beef will cost you 16.4% more than a year ago.
Other prices that are up:
Jewelry 13.1%; auto repair 9.6%; Bananas 7.9%; Electricity 6.8% (Trump really likes to tell people energy costs are down), and pet services are up 5.6%. In all, 78 percent of the 170 items in that survey showed increases.
“Tariffs are creating great wealth,” Trump said. For the federal government, perhaps, because they’re being paid out of his taxpayers’ wallets, not by foreign countries, a truth he cannot bring himself to admit.
The economy is booming, he says. Not for most of us. The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston says low-income Americans are running substantial credit card debts that will come due for payment soon—and we’ll see what happens with that part of our economy.
Not that Donald Trump cares one whit about that part of our economy. The Royal Bank of Canada says the top ten percent of wage earners in this country spent $20.3 trillion in the first six months of 2025. The other ninety percent spent $22.5 trillion. The Bank of America says rich people have seen their take home pay go up by four percent in the last year. The little people have seen their go up by 1.4 percent. Corporate profits were up more than $166 billion in the third quarter. In the second quarter, they went up only $6.8 billion.
Unemployment moved up to 4.6% last month, but not among the people Trump hangs out with.
POLITICO reported recently that former St. Louis Federal Reserve Economist Christopher Waller (he’s one of the governors of the Federal Reserve now and, some think, on Trump’s short list to become the next Fed Chairman) old the Yale CEO Conference, “Wages aren’t moving. The surpluses are gone. The bank accounts are closer to, like, day-to-day paychecks. Everybody talks about how loose financial conditions [are]. They’re loose for everybody in this room. I guarantee it. If you go out to the sort of Main Street, middle America that I’m from? These people don’t see cheap financing. They look at high mortgage rates, high car loans, high credit card rates. They’re not saying financing is cheap.”
The Washington Post reported Satuday: “Corporate bankruptcies surged in 2025, rivaling levels not seen since the immediate aftermath of the Great Recession, as import-dependent businesses absorbed the highest tariffs in decades. At least 717 companies filed for bankruptcy through November, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. That’s roughly 14 percent more than the same 11 months of 2024, and the highest tally since 2010.
“Companies cited inflation and interest rates among the factors contributing to their financial challenges, as well as Trump administration trade policies that have disrupted supply chains and pushed up costs.
“But in a shift from previous years, the rise in filings is most apparent among industrials — companies tied to manufacturing, construction and transportation. The sector has been hit hard by President Donald Trump’s ever-fluid tariff politics—which he’s long insisted would revive American manufacturing. The manufacturing sector lost more than 70,000 jobs in the one-year period ending in November, federal data shows.”
He can lie all he wants. The people such as the ones on Duane Swift Parkway or East Miller Street or Hayselton Drive in Jefferson City, Missouri don’t see things from gaudy gold-decorated oval offices or corner offices in Manhattan skyscrapers.
The people who used to work at JoAnn’s Fabrics and Hardee’s restaurant, even the UPS Store here—all closed now—have trouble buying what Trump is selling these days. But they’re not in Trump’s financial circle so he doesn’t care.
State government also is looking at layoffs because of declining state revenues resulting for elimination of the capital gains tax—something that’s good for people rich enough to have capital gains but bad for the people who do the daily work of state government and those who live paycheck to paycheck
The closest time Donald Trump ever comes to our level is when he gets a McDonald’s hamburger. Somebody in his Secret Service detail probably pays for it, so he doesn’t know about the price of hamburger. Donald Trump opens his wallet only to put money into it.
He’s bullish on 2026. But not for you and me.