Some of the country’s most coveted voters are fed up with American democracy
Participants in a Pennsylvania focus group shared concerns about how polarized political parties and social media giants are pushing the country in a dangerous direction.
February 17, 2025 | By John Sakellariadis
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.
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?’”
The focus group in Nazareth was brought together by Keep Our Republic, a nonpartisan non-profit organization that since 2020 has traveled across Rust Belt swing states to restore Americans’ trust in their elections. POLITICO observed it, like the one held here last year, under the condition that voters be identified by their first names only… READ MORE