NAZARETH, Pennsylvania — President Donald Trump declared upon taking office that the U.S. had entered a “new golden age,” but it doesn’t feel that way to a select group of voters from a state that helped deliver his victory.
The voters — men and women, young and old — were part of a 15-person focus group that came together on a frigid mid-January night in the battleground town of Nazareth, to dissect the state of the country’s democracy following one of the most divisive elections in American history.
The Fragile Nature of American Democracy
Their outlook would prove to be a far cry from Trump’s triumphalism. Members of the focus group instead spelled out their anxieties about the fragile nature of the country’s increasingly polarized, anger-riddled and online experiment in self-governance.
“There’s too much hate in politics right now, and it just makes you scared to vote honestly,” said Joe, a college student in his early 20s who was one of the younger participants in the group. “You’re just like, ‘What side do I pick?’”
Since Trump’s swearing-in, the president and his allies in Congress have moved at a blistering pace to pursue an aggressive agenda, citing an allegedly overwhelming electoral mandate as justification for it. The Democrats, for their part, have struggled to unite on a strategy and find an identity beyond opposing Trump — even though his presidential win was modest by historical standards.
A Reminder of Unrepresented Voters
The broad dissatisfaction with American politics inside the focus group was a reminder that some of the voters who helped tip the last election in Trump’s favor didn’t feel fully represented by either candidate. And coming from a place like Nazareth, it offered a small but important warning sign for both the new president and the Democratic Party as they plot the next four years.
Nazareth — which lies roughly 300 miles from where the first attempt on Trump’s life was made in July — is a bellwether town inside a bellwether county. Residents here voted for Trump by roughly 1.7 percentage points this fall — almost the same margin the new president claimed in the state and the country as a whole.
The Quest for Unity Amidst Division
“Most of us sitting at this table are really a lot closer together than the political parties would have us believe,” said Frank, one of the oldest voters in the room. A Marine Corps veteran who voted for Trump in 2016, Frank later shared that he had split his ticket between Democrat Kamala Harris and now-GOP Sen. Dave McCormick, but he made clear he wasn’t thrilled about the options he had — a sentiment shared by many others in the room.
Seated around four folding tables in Nazareth’s small local arts center, the participants in the room were fed the type of questions that don’t typically feature in televised political debates: broad prompts about the health and direction of the country, and whether social media was making it harder for Americans to stay informed.
Concerns and Hopes for the Future
One takeaway was that the shadow of political violence had not lifted from the country, particularly after the assassination attempts targeted at the now-president.
Despite expressing widespread concerns about the future of American democracy, focus group participants voiced confidence in the U.S. voting system itself.
Many in the room nonetheless felt like both parties weren’t delivering for voters — the Democrats in particular.
“I just had a lot of trouble feeling like I could even trust the Democratic Party,” said Kyle, a soon-to-be-father who works in marketing. Kyle, like others, said he felt lied to by the party and the media about Joe Biden’s declining mental state early in the race.
Yearning for Civility in Politics
The exhaustion at being at the center of a bitter tug-of-war between the two rival parties dovetailed into a broader theme of the night: an overwhelming desire to return to a bygone era where civility wasn’t out of fashion in American politics.
It was the type of raw but civil exchange of ideas that the focus group participants had just partaken in — and what they were craving from their ads, their media and above all their politicians.
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