The midterms are less than three months away. A new Financial Times poll, out August 16, shows over 53% of registered voters, among them 25% were Republicans, say their finances have worsened since Trump returned to the White House January last year.
55% disapprove of Trump's performance. Among them 20% are Republicans.
One factor is the US-Iran war and other issues that keep pushing up fuel prices and other consumer costs.
The poll also shows Democrats with a clear advantage. While 45% favor Republicans, 51% of Americans say they'll vote for a Democratic candidate in the November midterms.
On jobs and the economy, voters trust Democrats more than Republicans.
For Trump and the Republican Party, this is a blaring alarm. Republicans believe it was voter trust on these issues that powered Trump’s 2024 victory. That trust is now eroding.
The nonpartisan London-based firm Focaldata conducted the poll from August 7 to 10, surveying 1,913 registered voters.
The results are stark: 53% of registered voters say their living conditions have worsened under Trump. That includes nearly 57% of independents and almost a quarter of Republicans.
Nearly two-thirds of respondents say the US economy is on the wrong track.
53% say their living conditions have worsened under Trump. Nearly two-thirds say the economy is on the wrong track.
Trump's Approval Tanks
Voters are handing Democrats the advantage on the issues that hit kitchen tables hardest: inflation, cost of living, jobs, and the economy. It's a brutal verdict on Trump's economic stewardship.
And Trump's numbers on inflation and cost of living? Abysmal. A full 64% disapprove. That includes nearly 70% of independents and about a third of his own Republicans.
The reality is stark. US inflation hit 3.4% in July.
High prices are forcing millions of Americans to slash spending. Consumer confidence has cratered, sinking near historic lows.
And wages fell in July, according to US government data.
Trump's overall approval is just as grim. A full 55% of Americans disapprove of his performance. That includes nearly one in five Republicans.
Here's a flashing red light for the White House: Trump's net approval among Republicans (the share satisfied minus those opposed) has plunged 8 points in just one month.
Midterm Reckoning and the War Factor
Trump won't be on the ballot in November. But the midterms are widely seen as a national referendum on his leadership.
Democrats need to win just four seats in the Senate and four in the House to seize control of Congress next year.
If they pull it off, they can block any partisan legislation for the next two years. That would gut the Republican agenda, leaving it virtually powerless except through executive actions by the president and his cabinet.
According to reports, polls have been telling a consistent story for months: Democrats are likely to retake the House. The Senate? That's a tougher climb.
A string of recent polls shows Democrats could retake the House.
And then there's the war. A Reuters survey found Americans' support for a war with Iran is extremely low. The vast majority believe Trump has failed to clarify his goals or strategy.
Deep Throat
** 博客文章文責自負,不代表本公司立場 **
The future belongs to artificial general intelligence (AGI). China and the United States are pursuing different strategies in the contest for global leadership.
But one US national security think tank wants to take the rivalry to an extreme. The Center for a New American Security (CNAS) has gone so far as to suggest that Washington consider extreme measures to stop China from achieving AGI first.
CNAS released “Superpowers and AGI” report late last month.
Jacob Stokes, one of the report's authors and a former White House official, called on the US to prepare itself. He listed possible extreme measures, from diplomacy and espionage to cyberattacks and coercive steps. Among them: military strikes on Chinese data centers.
Stokes, one of the authors of the report urged extreme steps, even strikes on Chinese data centers.
CNAS is headquartered in Washington and was founded in 2007. It has long advised the US government on defense, Indo-Pacific and China strategy. Its lean is hawkish.
Late last month, CNAS released a report titled “Superpowers and AGI”. The document reeks of gunpowder. It argues that the race for AGI, and the technology's potential emergence, could profoundly affect US-China competition. It could also heighten the risk of military conflict or catastrophe on multiple fronts.
The Containment Checklist
To that end, the report urges US policymakers to act on several fronts. First, ensure that American resources and technology do not aid China's AI development. Second, establish AI-focused diplomatic channels with allies and with China, so that the potential emergence of AGI is placed on the agenda. Third, develop a technically sophisticated method to track the inputs into AGI and the key performance thresholds of frontier AI systems.
The list goes on. Washington should conduct scenario exercises testing when and how the US should intervene to halt China's AGI development. It should prepare to reverse-engineer or steal the technology should China obtain AGI first. And it should limit and contain the reach of authoritarian digital infrastructure.
The most extreme proposal of all is military strikes. The South China Morning Post reported on 4 September that Stokes, deputy director of CNAS's Indo-Pacific Security Program, addressed an online event on Thursday.
His message was blunt. The US Department of Defense, the National Security Agency and other agencies should begin assessing what intelligence would be needed to justify such operations. That would pave the way for the "hard action" to follow.
The Cold War Playbook
Stokes served as a national security staffer under former US president Barack Obama. In the report he unabashedly lays out a menu of what he calls "diplomatic, espionage, cyber and kinetic measures." Among them are military strikes on the data centers that train and run China's AGI systems. He even touts preventive strikes before China develops AGI at all.
Stokes goes so far as to compare the undertaking to the way "in a past era, policymakers would learn about nuclear weapons." His declared method is to "work backwards from the science to the policy implications."
Citing assessments by research outfit Epoch AI, the report notes that the US currently leads China in advanced AI models by only "months." But it warns that China could pull off an "unexpected technological breakthrough" in fields such as robotics and "embodied AI."
Citing research institute Epoch AI data, the report sees China pulling off surprise breakthroughs.
Notably, Stokes also concedes a gap on the American side. The US government and its intelligence agencies have "not been organised for espionage to gather technological secrets for decades."
"The Height of Recklessness"
Stokes' extreme remarks have drawn questioning within the United States itself. William Hartung, a senior arms and defense budget expert at the Washington-based non-profit Project On Government Oversight (POGO), publicly slammed the report as "the height of recklessness."
Hartung warned that any strike on Chinese data centers would "risk starting a shooting war between two nuclear-armed powers". Such a war could bring tragic consequences for all concerned.
China has consistently maintained that AI should be people-centered and that intelligence should serve the good. Military applications must remain under human control. Beijing opposes turning technological issues into bloc confrontation or weaponry.
Make no mistake: technological competition is no casus belli. When individual American politicians and think-tank figures reach for threats of "military strikes" and "espionage" at every turn, they gravely violate the basic norms of international relations. They also expose a dangerous bid to politicize and militarize technology.
