Welcome to the first, ahem, serving of Whole-Hog Politics, a weekly note that aims to give you a quick and useful overview of the political scene.

Why Whole Hog? Well, first off, barbecue is delicious. And, in many parts of our great nation, you might find a pig roast at the center of a political gathering. In other places, it’s a clambake, a bean dinner, a fish fry, or, believe it or not, a possum feast.

In West Virginia, where I grew up and learned to cover politics, they still host ramp dinners. Every spring, politicians are invited to come and eat heaps of our strong wild onions and compliment the delicious taste without knocking their hosts over with their ramp-y breath.

(Still far milder than what they make the politicians eat in Arkansas.)

Our Whole-Hog identity is a nod to a time when people actually enjoyed politics and saw more fun in the necessary work of choosing our leaders. I work hard to keep what’s happening today in the proper historical context, which will be part of what we do every week in this note. It’s tempting as it is to believe that we live in “unprecedented” times, but every generation has felt that way. We have unique challenges and opportunities, but we are not different from the old politicos who figured out that voters were more inclined to hear a speech after a bellyful of barbecue.

Politics is too important to take so seriously all the time, so we’ll have a little frivolity as well as reader mail where you and I will be able to talk about what’s on your mind.

I also chose the name because we’re aiming to give you a wide array of political news, both from The Hill and some other outlets. In a time when hyperspecialization is the trend in media, we’re going the other way. My hope is that if you can spare 10 or 15 minutes of your week, you could feel reasonably up to date on what’s happening in American politics.

To be good citizens, we have to be informed citizens. But so much of what’s on offer in political news is meant for insiders — or wannabe insiders. It’s not a virtue, though, to make it hard for the people the system is supposed to be serving to have a reasonable understanding of what’s happening and what may happen next in politics.

I have devoted my vocational life for the past 27 years to covering politics. I love it. I love the data. I love the big, vivid personalities and dramas. I love these things for themselves, but more so because I love my country. Covering politics has given me a front-row seat to see how history is made, and what I want to do with you, gentle readers, is give you the best of all of it. Everything but the squeal, you might even say.

You’ll also get deeper dives on the topics I think might be useful or that you’ll find fascinating.

In our first outing, though, let’s keep it pretty simple and just do a little level setting. This note is getting underway at about the same time as a new Congress and a new presidential term. Given the absolute frenzy of activity in Washington, it’s hard to believe that we’re less than two weeks into the second term of President Trump. But the hard work hasn’t even started yet.

We are 641 days from the midterm elections, when voters will get to offer a judgement on the performance of Trump 2.0. That’s a lot of news cycles, but as Republicans race to get up and running with their first turn at unified government in seven years, they do so with the knowledge that the verdict of the voters will come swiftly.

In politics, though, it’s not so much about how well one does, but how well one does compared to expectations. The remarkable reprieve that Democrats got from voters in 2022 wasn’t an endorsement of the status quo — as the results in 2024 made clear — but rather that the status quo was better than the alternative and an improvement on where things had been when the Democrats took over.

As a new Quinnipiac University poll makes clear, the blue team is still reeling from the deepening dissatisfaction that set in during the second half of former President Biden’s term. The survey found that 57 percent of registered voters had an unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party, the highest in the 17 years the question has been asked. It’s substantially worse than the 45 percent of respondents who view the GOP unfavorably, which about breaks even. Forty-three percent held a favorable view of the Republicans. But compare that to the corresponding favorable number for Democrats: 31 percent.

Ugh.

When it comes to assessing how voters feel about Republicans, though, we don’t need to go spelunking into the cross tabs. Maybe not since Franklin Roosevelt has a party been so closely identified with its supreme leader. Trump is the GOP and the GOP is Trump, and if you ever wonder if that’s so, remember the looks on the faces of normie Republican senators as they extolled the virtues of Cabinet nominees whom two years ago they would have crossed the street to........

© The Hill