This is an adapted excerpt from the Aug. 19 episode of “All In with Chris Hayes.”
Even though things are pretty dire in the life of our nation right now, just know this: If you are not happy with the direction our country is heading, well, you are not alone.
On Monday, Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik — the MAGA foot soldier who was Donald Trump’s pick to be the United Nations ambassador but had to stay in Congress because Republicans desperately needed her vote — made a rare public appearance in her upstate New York district.
When Stefanik got up to speak at a memorial event honoring a local Republican politician, the congresswoman was repeatedly heckled and booed. People in the crowd called her a “traitor” and a “coward” and demanded that she show up for a town hall with her constituents.
It’s everywhere you look. It’s anecdotal and it’s quantitative and qualitative: Trump and the MAGA agenda are really unpopular.
But Stefanik’s constituents in upstate New York are not alone. That is pretty much the tone throughout the country right now. Congress is in its August recess, and this is the time when voters typically get to let their elected officials know what they really think, in forums and town halls.
It’s clear Americans are not happy with the direction of the country. In the rare instances where Republican lawmakers do hold events, they’ve been met with a similar reaction to that of Stefanik. But, according to NPR, fewer than 10% of House Republicans have even bothered to do in-person town halls this summer.
Republicans claim the events are being mobbed by the “far left.” But here is the thing: It is not just the “far left,” and it is not just town halls. It is everywhere you look.
Like the huge protests we’ve seen in thousands of communities across the nation, all against Trump and his agenda. In fact, according to USA Today, “June 2025 saw more than 4,600 protests, the most in a calendar month since June 2020,” after the police killing of George Floyd.
It’s also in the polling. A recent Pew poll of more than 3,500 adults found that Trump’s approval rating had plummeted since January. He is now underwater by 22 points. That’s not a one-off. The same poll showed Trump underwater by double-digit margins on some of the biggest issues of the summer. The majority of Americans disapprove of his budget bill that gives billionaires tax breaks and slashes services for everybody else. They also disapprove of his tariffs, and he’s underwater by 44% on his handling of the case against his old friend, the late alleged child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. When asked about Trump’s overall effect on the federal government, respondents said he is making it worse by a 2-to-1 margin. It’s everywhere you look. It’s anecdotal and it’s quantitative and qualitative: Trump and the MAGA agenda are really unpopular. Just consider the No. 1 issue that very clearly got Trump the key votes he needed to win the election last year: widespread anger about high prices. Despite Trump’s promises to lower prices, Americans are still seeing costs for just about everything go up. People are feeling it, and they are making themselves heard. The way democracy is supposed to work is that elected leaders answer to the people who elect them. Right now, the public is shouting, booing and hissing at the Republicans who run Congress and the White House. It’s clear they don’t want to hear it, but I don’t think ignoring the American people will make it go away.
Chris Hayes hosts “All In with Chris Hayes” at 8 p.m. ET Tuesday through Friday on MS NOW. He is the editor-at-large at The Nation. A former fellow at Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics, Hayes was a Bernard Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation. His latest book is “The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource” (Penguin Press).
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW.
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