Most Americans want to blow up the way Washington works — and the data backs them up.

Twenty-five years later, the memory has not faded. Eighty-three percent of Americans who were alive on September 11, 2001 — and 93% of those who were at least 10 years old that day — say they can still recall exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news.

One in four American adults is holding two generations together right now. An aging parent on one side. Kids or an adult child on the other.

The United States has welcomed just 10,258 refugees in the first ten months of this fiscal year. That number represents real people — families who survived war, persecution, and violence, who waited years through security checks and health screenings, who did everything right — and were still turned away.

Only 34% of Americans approve of the job Donald Trump is doing as president. That is not a political talking point. That is a number — and it tells a story about where this country stands.

Only 55% of Americans are confident that this November's midterm elections will be conducted fairly and accurately. That means nearly half the country is heading into one of the most consequential elections in a generation with real doubt about whether their vote will count.

More than half of Americans now view the Supreme Court unfavorably. That is not a blip. That is a verdict.

More than half of young women in America are getting health information from social media influencers — not because they want to, but increasingly because the alternatives are harder to reach, harder to trust, or harder to afford. That is a health care access story disguised as a social media story.

While American families absorb higher gas prices, grocery bills, and skyrocketing utility costs driven by the war in Iran, the rest of the world is refusing to let its people suffer alone.

Every member of the U.S. House of Representatives speaks for roughly 802,000 people. That's the second-highest ratio of constituents to lawmaker of any democracy on Earth — trailing only India.

A home that cost $269,600 in 2019 runs $350,000 today. Incomes for young adults climbed just 9% over that same stretch. It's no surprise that a supermajority of Americans — 87% — say buying a home is harder for young people now than it was for their parents.

In 2018, most Republicans agreed: Americans should be able to vote early or absentee without having to give a reason. Fifty-seven percent of them said so.

More than 160 years after the last enslaved Americans were told they were free, 17 states still haven't made that day a paid holiday. And at least one governor has quietly chosen to stop marking it at all.

Gas prices are surging — and while Americans feel it at the pump every single day, much of the world has already been building its way out of this dependence.

Two-thirds of Americans say inflation is a very big problem — and for most working families, that feeling is backed up by the numbers.

Last year, 44,447 Americans lost their lives to gun-related injuries, a staggering toll that translates to dozens of empty chairs at kitchen tables every single day. While the total has dipped slightly from recent peaks, it remains the fifth-highest number on record since 1968, cementing the reality that gun violence is a persistent national epidemic.

Nearly half of Americans believe their political system must fundamentally change — and don't believe it ever will.

Three independent organizations that track democracy worldwide all agree: American democracy declined in 2025. Not gradually. Not marginally. Significantly.

It was less than half a minute of footage — a young man at an elephant enclosure, talking into a camera — and it changed, permanently, who gets to have a public voice.

The American people have spoken. And what they have said is unambiguous.