By Kenneth Tiven
The best political polling in America is not always conducted by professional survey firms. Sometimes it unfolds in the ordinary places where citizens gather without cameras, consultants or party strategists. My favourite barbershop has always been one such place.
When I returned recently for my regular haircut and beard trim, I noticed immediately that the conversation had changed.
A year ago, the customers in this middle-class neighbourhood barbershop enthusiastically discussed Donald Trump’s promise to remake America. Today, with congressional mid-term elections approaching, the optimism has given way to frustration. Rising prices dominate the conversation. The cost of groceries, fuel, housing and everyday necessities has become the common grievance.
Curiously, one thing has not become more expensive. The barber still charges just $10 for a haircut and beard trim, exactly as he did several years ago. Most customers voluntarily hand him $15 or even $20, acknowledging today’s economic realities.
A fashionable salon nearby charges two or three times as much—but without the spirited political conversation.
Another subject that drew unusually strong criticism was cryptocurrency. The Trump family’s growing involvement in the crypto industry, which critics estimate has generated billions of dollars in wealth, found little support among those gathered. The printable version of the consensus was blunt: “It’s not real. It’s for crooks and speculators.” Yet, even those expressing scepticism stopped short of personally condemning Trump for benefiting from it.
Whether this neighbourhood reflects the nation is impossible to know. But national polling appears to echo the mood.
Several surveys now place Trump’s approval rating below 40 percent, among the weakest for a modern American president. Commentators have drawn historical comparisons to the collapse in public confidence that confronted President Herbert Hoover during the Great Depression before his defeat by Franklin Roosevelt in 1932.
The political circumstances that returned Trump to office in 2024 were themselves unusual. President Joe Biden withdrew from the race amid concerns about age and health, while Trump—himself an elderly candidate—remained the Republican nominee. Under America’s Electoral College system, victory depends not simply on the national popular vote, but on winning individual states whose electoral votes determine the presidency. Some traditional Democratic voters crossed over to Trump, while others simply stayed home, frustrated by politics altogether.
According to many critics, voters underestimated the extent to which Trump’s agenda—often associated with the conservative blueprint known as Project 2025—would reshape federal institutions. They argue that immigration enforcement has expanded dramatically, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement assuming an increasingly prominent domestic role. Supporters view this as stronger border enforcement; critics see an unprecedented expansion of federal policing powers.
Foreign policy has further sharpened political divisions. Many Americans question the objectives and outcomes of military confrontation with Iran. Critics argue that military force alone cannot fundamentally alter Iran’s strategic calculations and warn that any major ground intervention would exact a heavy human cost.
Among many Vietnam veterans, these concerns carry particular resonance.
Having experienced one prolonged conflict, they remain deeply sceptical of another open-ended military commitment. Trump himself famously avoided military service during the Vietnam War after receiving a medical deferment for bone spurs—a fact that continues to attract political scrutiny.
Critics also argue that Trump’s leadership style has become increasingly detached from professional advice.
They contend that intelligence assessments have often been subordinated to ideological instincts, while dissenting opinions receive little attention. For them, the greatest concern is not merely policy, but the erosion of democratic norms that have traditionally relied as much on restraint and institutional respect as on written constitutional safeguards.
Unlike previous presidents, they argue, Trump appears largely immune to the political costs of public embarrassment or contradiction. His repeated refusal to acknowledge mistakes—including his continued insistence that the 2020 election was stolen—reinforces, in their view, a leadership style driven by personal grievance rather than institutional accountability.
This unwillingness to concede error, critics say, also shapes his handling of foreign crises. Ending a conflict often requires compromise, reassessment and acceptance that initial assumptions may have been flawed. Those qualities, they argue, remain largely absent from Trump’s political character.
Within the administration itself, opponents increasingly view Trump less as the architect of policy than as the public face of a broader ideological movement. Figures such as Stephen Miller are widely seen as exerting significant influence over immigration and domestic policy, reinforcing concerns among critics about an increasingly hardline direction.
Legal battles have further intensified those concerns. Several Democratic-led states challenged the cancellation of federally-funded energy and climate programmes, alleging that political considerations rather than statutory criteria determined the decisions. Court filings by the Justice Department acknowledged that electoral considerations influenced some funding decisions, adding another contentious chapter to the ongoing struggle between federal authority and state governments.
Ultimately, elections are decided less by speeches than by everyday experience.
The men in that neighbourhood barbershop were not quoting think-tank reports or campaign advertisements. They were talking about grocery bills, family budgets and broken promises.
Whether their changing mood represents a national political realignment will become clear only when Americans vote. But if that barbershop conversation is any indication, many voters are beginning to reassess the promises that brought Donald Trump back to power—and that reassessment could reshape the balance of power in Washington.
—The writer has worked in senior positions at The Washington Post,
NBC, ABC and CNN and also consults for several Indian channels
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