Americans like Democrats as much as they trust Trump. That’s not good | Opinion
Over nearly a decade, a YouGov tracking poll found that the people who believe Donald Trump is honest have dwindled from 37% to 31% in numbers out this week. That’s not bad for a guy who spouts a fabrication, falsehood or something fallacious about every time he talks.
Over a similar time period, America’s premier pollster Gallup reported this week that favorable views of the Democratic Party have fallen from 43% to 34%, a record low. Favorable views of the Republican Party stayed the same.
That’s something. Americans are just about as dubious of trusting Democrats as they are of trusting our famously dishonest president.
Things seem pretty bad for the Democrats. But those whose faith continues to burn bright, say support for Democrats is going down mostly among … Democrats. Those Democrats are furious that their party isn’t doing a good enough job opposing Trump and not doing enough in recent elections that have left Republicans in charge of the Senate, the House of Representatives and the White House.
That’s partly true, but it leaves out the fact that support for Democrats among Black and Hispanic Americans has been getting squishier. And faith in Democrats is also plummeting among the moderates and independents whose votes tend to decide close elections. A big reason for that declining support are the extreme positions Democrats take on issue after issue in adherence to the extreme positions of Democratic special interests.
An example: Trump says crime is awful in the District of Columbia. Democrats say crime has been going down there since a peak in 2023. It is even down this year so far, they say, and we shouldn’t be so hard on “justice-impacted” individuals. Maybe so, but 91% of D.C. residents polled by The Washington Post feel crime is a problem that’s “moderately serious” to “extremely serious.” Who votes? The statistics or the people being polled?
Democrats like Harris sound out of touch
You don’t get very far telling people what they feel isn’t true. Kamala Harris tried that with statistics about the Biden economy. How did that work out for her and the Democrats who followed her lead? Not well.
Perhaps that’s what explains what’s going on with faith in Democrats. Trump tells “lies” that happen to match the feelings of the public about crime and immigration and the economy and trade, and Democrats spout statistics. Democrats lose faith in their party because that strategy keeps losing and moderates lose faith because Democrats sound out of touch.
Add to that a steady drumbeat of news stories about the weird things Democratic politicians and Democratic-allied groups do when they have power and you have a recipe for disaster.
Sanctuary cities in Rhode Island let an illegal immigrant charged with frequenting underage prostitutes go rather than hold him for federal immigration authorities who want to deport him.
Schools in Democrat-ruled Northern Virginia drive students to get abortions without their parents’ knowledge after being caught transferring a trans girl who allegedly raped a classmate to another school where they could continue to use the girls restroom without parents of students knowing.
The attorney general of Democratic California sued local school district to force them to hide from parents the fact that their kids were using differently gendered names and pronouns at school.
As the problem of homeless drug use and violence festers and the number of homeless skyrockets — partially collapsing a highway after (really) setting it on fire — cities and national groups alienate people and distract from solutions by adopting new more sensitive language to avoid hurting homeless people’s feelings. They’re “unhoused” not “homeless,” you hater.
Now that there is a growing conservative press (half of Americans watch at least some Fox News according to Pew) these stories spread like wildfire. And conservatives are getting increasingly skilled at turning the page past outrage to much more damaging mockery.
I loathe most everything about Trump, but the loopiness of his Democratic opponents made it nearly impossible for me to pull the lever for Kamala Harris in hopes of keeping him out of the White House. I know other folks like me who couldn’t do it, so they just didn’t go to the polls.
If Democrats want to return faith in the Democratic Party to disaffected Democrats and leary independents, they need to turn back to the center and abandon their extremes.
There’s hope if they do. The same poll that found Americans increasingly disgusted with the Democrats found that more were identifying with the weirdos and extremists anyway in the face of Trump’s daily outrages. All Democrats have to do is to focus a little more on a winning message and making it a little easier for folks in the middle to turn their way.
David Mastio is a national columnist for McClatchy and The Kansas City Star.
This story was originally published August 15, 2025 at 6:09 AM with the headline "Americans like Democrats as much as they trust Trump. That’s not good | Opinion."
