The latest POLITICO poll of December 2025 has arrived, serving as yet another glossy brochure for the impending collapse of the American experiment. It is a document that ostensibly measures 'public opinion,' which is a generous euphemism for the collective, low-frequency hum of three hundred million people who couldn’t explain the difference between a marginal tax rate and a hole in the ground if their lives—and indeed, their lives do—depended on it. This poll, a ritualistic gathering of data from the economically illiterate and the perpetually aggrieved, tells us exactly what we already know: the average citizen is a walking contradiction wrapped in a flag and marinated in profound confusion.

Let’s begin with the economy, that mystical deity the public worships with the fervor of a medieval peasant praying for rain while simultaneously poisoning their own well. According to the December results, the electorate remains ‘concerned’ about the economy. How profound. It’s like saying a man falling off a cliff is ‘concerned’ about gravity. They want growth, they want stability, and they want it all without the minor inconvenience of understanding how a global supply chain functions. The poll reveals a populace that views the economy not as a complex system of trade and production, but as a magic button the President chooses not to press because he’s supposedly too busy being either a Marxist plant or a corporate shill, depending on which flavor of cable news brain-rot the respondent prefers. The Right wants to deregulate until we’re breathing pure asbestos, and the Left wants to spend trillions of dollars we don’t have on programs that will be managed with the efficiency of a DMV in a power outage. Both sides are united only by their shared certainty that someone else should be paying for it.

Then we arrive at the comedy of errors known as tariffs. The December data shows a peculiar, almost masochistic support for trade barriers, provided the respondent doesn't have to connect the dots between ‘protecting domestic industry’ and the fact that their plastic lifestyle now costs forty percent more. It is the fiscal equivalent of hitting yourself in the face to spite the mirror. The American consumer wants the ‘Buy American’ sticker but possesses the ‘Made in China’ wallet. They cheer for the exclusion of foreign goods while weeping in the aisles of big-box retailers because a toaster now costs the equivalent of a monthly car payment. This is the intellectual depth of a bird bath. They believe they are participating in a grand geopolitical chess match, unaware that they are actually the pawns being sacrificed so that a handful of billionaire donors can see a two-percent bump in their quarterly dividends.

And what of taxes? The poll suggests a perennial desire for ‘tax fairness,’ which in American parlance means ‘tax the guy behind the tree.’ Everyone agrees the system is broken, yet everyone’s solution involves making sure they aren't the ones to fix it. The Right continues to peddle the tired fairy tale of ‘trickle-down’ economics, a theory that has been debunked more times than the Flat Earth society, while the Left suggests we can fund a utopian welfare state simply by shaking down a dozen tech CEOs. It’s a performative dance of greed and envy where the music is provided by the lobbyists. The poll respondents seem to believe that the national debt is a fictional number that only matters when the ‘other side’ is in power, an impressive display of cognitive dissonance that would be admirable if it weren't so catastrophic.

Energy policy, as always, remains the crowning achievement of public absurdity. The December poll results indicate a public that demands absolute energy independence, rock-bottom gasoline prices, and a pristine environment, all while refusing to allow a single power line, windmill, or refinery to be built within a hundred miles of their suburban purgatory. They want the lights to stay on and the AC to blast, but they recoil at the reality of physical infrastructure. It is a demand for magic. They view energy not as a commodity of physics and extraction, but as a basic human right that should be delivered via pixie dust. The irony of people driving three-ton SUVs to a poll to complain about carbon emissions while simultaneously demanding cheaper fuel is a level of satire I can barely improve upon.

In the end, the December 2025 POLITICO poll is not a reflection of a functioning society; it is a diagnostic report of a terminal patient. It shows a country that has traded civic duty for consumer entitlement and substituted shouting for thought. Both the Left and the Right have successfully transformed the electorate into a collection of Pavlovian dogs, salivating at the sound of the next partisan bell. As we look toward 2026, the only certainty is that these polls will continue to be published, the public will continue to be wrong about everything, and the slow, agonizing grind of mediocrity will march on, unabated by facts, logic, or the faint glimmer of human intelligence. Merry Christmas, America. You got exactly what you asked for, and as usual, you hate it.