Americans say US is 'out of control' – and not just liberals | Opinion

If you’ve been watching American cities under siege by federal agents and heard the imperialistic ramblings of our president, you might feel our country is swiftly coming unglued. Well, take comfort. You’re far from alone.

A new poll from The Economist/YouGov found a staggering 71% of Americans feel like the country is “out of control.” More than 60% say the country is on the wrong track, and 58% are dissatisfied with the way democracy is working.

Of those who feel things are out of control, a full 50% identify as conservatives. So this lingering sense of chaos is not simply coming from snowflake liberals like me. President Donald Trump has managed to scare the tuna salad out of most Americans, and we’re only one year into his second four-year reign of terror.

Trump is making a wide swath of Americans feel very uncomfortable

This sense of widespread disorder is, of course, a mirror reflection of the man in charge. There are ways this administration could have gone about its nativist, grift-forward business without rattling the nation. They could have taken a boil-the-frog approach to deportations and bullying allies and stripping away rights, not that a differing approach would have made the end results less awful.

But instead, it has been a blitz of maximum cruelty, maximum racism, maximum aggression. In Minnesota, where Minneapolis and other parts of the state have been flooded with masked federal agents who’ve already shot and killed a mother of three, a group of local police chiefs came together to report that several off-duty officers have been stopped and ordered to show proof of citizenship “solely because of the color of their skin.”

“I wish I could tell you this was an isolated incident,” said Mark Bruley, chief of the suburban Minneapolis Brooklyn Park Police Department. “If it is happening to our officers, it pains me to think of how many of our community members are falling victim to this every day. It has to stop.”

Chaos. Intentional, unprovoked, undesired and wholly unnecessary chaos.

ICE siege of Minneapolis is a prime example of Trumpian chaos

Residents of Minneapolis feel out of control, as they should. So do most of us.

Trump has talked about invoking the Insurrection Act and sending military forces into Minneapolis. More than half of Americans oppose such a thing, according to The Economist/YouGov poll, and only 37% support it.

He invaded Venezuela and now claims the United States controls that nation’s oil, even though 56% of Americans don’t want America taking Venezuela’s resources.

A Greenland obsession nobody asked for

While ignoring domestic food prices and other so-called America first issues he ran on, Trump has been ranting like a bellicose coot about taking control of Greenland. The aforementioned poll shows 72% of Americans oppose taking Greenland by force, and 51% oppose trying to purchase the island, with only 29% supporting the bizarro-world idea of a purchase.

Trump’s talk about Greenland has inflamed our NATO allies and prompted them to plan military exercises on the island. He’s scaring the people of Greenland and threatening to upend the world order.

And on Jan. 21, after European nations took a strong stand against him, it appears Trump may have backed down on his Greenland ambitions. Then again, he lies about everything, so who knows? It’s all chaos. Illogical and needless chaos.

Tariffs have cost US consumers and wreaked havoc on businesses

His tariffs have raised prices for American consumers, and there seems to be little rhyme or reason to them. As The New York Times reported Jan. 21: “President Trump said on Wednesday that he imposed higher tariffs on Switzerland last year, at least in part, because of a phone call with the country’s president that ‘rubbed me the wrong way.’ ”

Chaos. Costly, costly chaos.

Trump's approval numbers are in the toilet, across the board

Americans who aren’t blinded by MAGA allegiance or aren’t billionaires benefiting from Trump’s favorable treatment have good reason to feel things are out of control.

I’d guess that’s a sizable factor in Trump’s god-awful approval ratings. Only 37% of Americans approve of the job the president is doing in The Economist/YouGov poll, and his approval is underwater on crime, immigration, race relations and inflation/prices. On that last one – the issue Trump swore he’d address on day one – 61% of the population disapproves of his handling.

A new CNN poll found that 58% of Americans call the first year of Trump’s second term a failure. An AP/NORC poll released Jan. 15 found that 52% of Americans think Trump has been a poor or terrible president.

Those are horrific numbers. Trump isn’t listening to the American people. He is instead making us feel like the world around us is out of control. And it is. Very much so.

Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on Bluesky at @rexhuppke.bsky.social and on Facebook at facebook.com/RexIsAJerk.