‘Hard conversations’ show voters’ disappointment

Take a dozen people of wildly disparate views from a battleground state, put them together with one of the top public-opinion experts in the country, close the door for more than two hours and fortify them only with teeny 8-ounce bottles of water — and the result is utterly unpredictable.

That’s what happened in Pittsburgh, where — a surprise to all! — a civil conversation broke out. There was emotion, to be sure. There were strong feelings, of course. But there was also searing and searching conversation — and, though partisan differences persisted, there were some clear, sober warnings for President Donald J. Trump.

The Democrats who were skeptical of him before the election remain so. The Independents and Republicans who backed him showed their own skepticism — skepticism tinged with disappointment.

This was a focus group, not a scientific poll. Emory University in Atlanta has asked Peter Hart, a Democratic pollster respected by Republicans, to conduct “hard conversations” around the country, the better to understand the mood of a divided nation. If the Pittsburgh group — seven men, five women — was any indication, hard conversations around family supper tables and in gathering places across the country might reveal vital differences on policy questions, but also a rough consensus that Trump’s comportment does not comport with Americans’ views of the presidency.

“Regardless of what he truly wants to get done ... he has got to be his own worst enemy,” said Tony Sciullo, an Independent who works in the insurance business and who voted for Trump but expressed what he called “abject disappointment” in the president.

Hart opened these marathon conversations by asking the group, assembled from a broad geographical area in southwestern Pennsylvania, to share a single word to describe how they saw America right now. The answers were chilling: Bad. Chaotic. Embarrassing. Down. Shameful. Uncertain. Scared. Tense. These were punctuated by only a handful of optimistic assessments.

Hardly any of the Trump supporters rose to a vigorous defense of the president, though Russell Stitt, a Republican who is a retiree and who voted for Trump, said that the president was “trying to make America great.”

Mary Gallagher, a Democrat who works for a large national insurance company and who voted for Clinton, picked up the theme acidly: “We were told it was going to be a Cadillac Escalade, but in reality it is a pickup truck with a gun rack in the back, and it’s falling apart.”

All of this stunned Hart, who expected something else entirely.

“My mouth was agape at how personally upset and disappointed with him they were about the thing he said he’d have the easiest time doing, which is being ‘presidential,’” Hart said. “They couldn’t get past his personal behavior.”

“Against Hillary, he had a perfect foil — somebody who so many Americans had problems with in so many numbers of ways,” Hart said. “She was seen as not identifying with people, but as looking down on people. As a result, he was seen as the warrior fighting against a bad person. At this stage of the game, he represents us. He’s supposed to be the voice of hope. Everyone here said, directly or indirectly, that his presidency was about him, not about us.”

The people, at least this group, have spoken. What was clear, after an evening of their conversation, is how much all of them — Republicans and Democrats, Trump supporters and Trump critics — hope someone listens, the president especially.