U.S. President Donald Trump speaks after signing an executive order on a deal that would divest TikTok's U.S. operations from ByteDance from its Chinese owner ByteDance, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., September 25, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

CNN reports that for the first time in nearly a decade of polling, more than half of Americans say the country’s best days are already behind it.

“Three-quarters think the country’s political system needs major reforms or a complete overhaul,” according to CNN polling conducted by SSRS this summer.

And while more than half of political independents are either dissatisfied with or indifferent to both political parties, when Americans are unhappy, it’s usually a bigger political problem for the party in charge.

“Midterm elections often serve at least partially as a referendum on the current occupant of the White House,” reports CNN. “And right now, Americans are about twice as likely to say they’re angry than that they’re enthusiastic about the Trump administration’s policies.”

Next year’s midterms are months away but mid-term sentiment is already ramping up with Americans proclaiming by a 5-point margin that they’d rather see the Democrats than the Republicans in control of Congress after the midterm elections.

Asked how they’d feel if they were voting today, 39 percent of registered voters say they’d consider their ballot a message of opposition to Trump, while 28 percent say they’d consider it a message of support.

CNN reports the numbers closely resemble the results of a poll taken just before the 2018 midterms in Trump’s first presidency when Democrats gained more than 40 seats to flip control of the US House and complicated Trump’s agenda.

And while the public may see the Republican Party as containing the most decisive leaders, Democrats are seen as less likely than Republicans to be too extreme. The extremism view is a shift from March, when both parties were seen as equally on the edge.

What hasn’t changed much in the last few months, however, is Democrat irritation with its own Democratic Party. While more of the country is ready to send a message to Trump, Democrats don’t have faith in Democratic leaders to pull the levers that need pulling and be decisive in their behavior.