If you happen to live in the United States (and several other nations, frankly), you’ve probably noticed that things seem to be increasingly going to hell in a handbasket lately. Floods of illegal aliens are being flown and bussed all over the country. The sidewalks in many cities are impassable because of massive homeless encampments littered with drug addicts who are, in some cases, literally overdosing right out on the street. Parking your car at the curb for more than three minutes in many urban areas while running errands is basically a sign that you really wanted to get a new car anyway. If you’re lucky enough to somehow find a public school where any of the children can read at grade level, the staff will probably start trying to trans your kid as soon as you pull out from the parking lot. And overseas, our former partners and allies appear to be abandoning America in droves.

It’s not just your imagination. And with all of this going on, it’s no wonder that the numbers in the latest NBC News survey on the state of the nation look so dismal. When asked if the country is currently on the right track or wrong track, a shocking 74% said we were going in the wrong direction. They somehow managed to locate one in five who said that things are going well, but I assume none of them live in Chicago or San Francisco. (NY Post)

Voters are souring on the state of the nation, with a stunning 74% saying the US is on the wrong track, according to a survey released Sunday. The NBC poll found just 20% of respondents say America is moving in the right direction.

The last time voters were that bitter about the nation’s course — in 1992 and 2008 — the party in control of the White House changed hands, NBC’s Chuck Todd noted in unveiling the results.

In each of those elections, Democrats Bill Clinton and Barack Obama snatched the Oval Office back from Republicans.

I went through the cross tabs in that poll and found that they had done a pretty good job identifying a representative audience. The split between Democrat and Republican leaners was within one percent. The average income level of respondents showed that the sample skewed heavily toward the working class. And the racial breakdown was at least somewhat close to the national figures. And almost all of them are unhappy with the current situation.

As noted in the excerpt above, the last two times the nation’s outlook was this bleak were in 1992 and 2008. And in both of those years, the voters kicked the party in charge out of office. (To the benefit of the Democrats both times.) The reason that I point all of these things out is to establish a baseline when looking at the results of a completely different poll that NBC conducted during the same time period. Rather than asking about the current state of the nation, this one asked respondents who they expected to vote for next year when offered various sets of candidates. And these numbers are not at all reflective of the results of the right track, wrong track poll.

Former President Donald Trump has expanded his lead over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the rest of the Republican presidential field since Trump’s latest indictment on federal criminal charges, according to a new national NBC News poll.

Still, the survey finds half of Republican primary voters say they would consider another leader besides Trump — which suggests a potential opening for a rival to capture the GOP nomination, even as 6 out of 10 Republicans believe the indictments and investigations Trump faces are politically motivated…

The trouble for Trump comes not among Republicans but among the general electorate: A majority of all registered voters have concerns about Trump after his indictment on federal criminal charges, including 55% of independent voters. And President Joe Biden leads Trump by 4 points in the NBC News poll’s first hypothetical general-election matchup for 2024.

Under the current Democratic leadership, a huge majority of the country thinks that America is in bad shape and the future looks fairly bleak. And yet when asked about a hypothetical matchup between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, Biden comes out on top by a 49 to 45 margin. Granted, that’s within the poll’s margin of error, but… come on, man. What a bunch of malarkey.

DeSantis fares slightly better against Biden, but it’s still ludicrously close. That pretty much eliminates the idea that the GOP would be running away with this thing in a landslide if it weren’t for the Bad Orange Man. How can three-quarters of the nation believe that our country is currently being run into the ground, but nearly half of those people are still willing to vote for four more years of the same? ‘Thank you, sir, may I have another?’

I have tried to avoid adopting the assumption that the country is “just too divided” these days. I continue to believe that we have a lot of moderate independents out there and even a reasonable number of persuadable voters in each party. But perhaps I’m being too much of an optimist. I don’t expect to see another totally lopsided election like the one that Nixon swept in 1972, at least not in my lifetime. But surely we haven’t entirely lost the concept of voting in our own best interests, have we? Don’t answer that. I might not want to hear the results.