Today's Poll Question: Which ONE word would you use to describe the U.S.?

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Get ready to vote on today's daily poll question at smerconish.com.

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But first, Michael explains it for you right here.

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Welcome to The Smerconish Podcast from SiriusXM.

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Hello, hello!

**Michael Smerconish** (0:14)
Today is Monday, it's the 29th of June.
What one word would you use to describe the United States? What one word would you use to describe the United States? Think about that. A little thought experiment, this will help me frame today's poll question at smerconish.com.

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The Smerconish Podcast from SiriusXM.

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The Daily Poll Question at smerconish.com.

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A non-scientific social political question, designed to spark broader discussions about current issues.

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Get ready to cast your ballot and leave a rating and review of this podcast on your favorite podcast app.

**Michael Smerconish** (2:23)
So, I'm piggybacking on a survey of 2,500 Americans described by and conducted by the Associated Press and NORC. In other words, and the literal number is 2,596, they asked these people to describe the country using one word. Now, in their version, it was open-ended, so that people could respond in their own words. And the poll found that many people use words like freedom. Others use words like struggling or declining. Some say corruption, some say unfairness. And then what they did is they kind of grouped together the thread of what people responded. For example, what one word would you use to describe the US.? 18% said great, prosperous, powerful.
13% said free or freedom. 9% said corruption or unfairness. 14% said struggling or declining.
7% instability, 4% divided. 4% embarrassing, disappointed or bad. 5% confused or lost. 3% opportunity or fairness.
2% said, let me just see if I can tell you what 2% said. 2% said home, 2% said resilience, 2% said diverse, 1% said, wow, 1%. 1% said united. What I did is I selected one word from each of those groupings. I think there were 13
So in terms of the great, prosperous, powerful category, I selected powerful.
And that is one of your choices today, because I'm asking you to pick just one word from this list. My list, therefore, paired down from the Associated Press, powerful, struggling, free, corrupt, lost, embarrassing, instable, instable, that should probably be unstable, unstable, divided, opportunity, home, resilient, united, or diverse. If you had one word to summarize, what would it be relative to the United States? Two in ten use the word great, prosperous, or powerful to describe the country. But many say the nation is struggling or declining. And as you would anticipate, Republicans tend to use more positive phrases. Three in ten Republicans characterize the country as great, prosperous, or powerful, compared with that one in ten Democrats. Democrats more inclined than Republicans to describe the country using negative words like struggling or declining, and corruption, and fairness. There are other questions. There were only, I think, four or five, one, two, three, four. Just four questions that they asked. Let me tell you about the other three, if I may. So that was the one that I'm parroting. Which one word would you use to best describe the United States? My question is not open-ended because, as I say, I'm parroting some of their answers. But what else did they ask? Okay, second question they asked. What would you say is the main thing that unites us? Hmm. By the way, I could make this a whole week of poll questions, because I love these. Top answer, freedom or liberty.