Our country was already strained before all of this went down. Now, the floor has fallen out.
“Angry,” “fearful,” “dissatisfied.” The percentage of Americans expressing these emotions about their country has jumped this summer from already high levels. It turns out that a pandemic, a closure of society and the economy, a prominent police killing, riots and looting, and a threatening cancel culture can really sour the mood in a country.
Pew Research Center polled its American Trends Panel (a sample of 4,708 people) and found record-negative attitudes.
How do you feel “about the state of the country these days?” the pollsters asked. A full 71% said “angry,” and 66% said “fearful.” An optimistic minority of 46% said “hopeful,” but a measly 17% said they feel “proud.”
Negative answers aren’t new, but the magnitude of the negativity is. For the past four years, the public has been dissatisfied with “the way things are going in this country” by a more than 2-to-1 margin. In April, for instance, 68% were dissatisfied, compared to 31% satisfied. This was typical for recent years.
Come June, though, almost everyone was dissatisfied — 87%, according to Pew.
This coincides with a massive study by the University of Chicago finding that we are less happy than we’ve ever been. The dour mood is not surprising. Take away people’s jobs, schools, sports, pubs, churches, block parties, play dates, and swimming pools, give them instead dark warnings about a deadly virus, killer cops, and looting gangs of youths, and layer a take-no-prisoners culture war on top of it, and you’re bound to see morale go down.
But here’s the exception, the bright spot: The protests may have generated some uplift within minority communities.
Pew asked panelists if “life for future generations will be better than life today.” The numbers weren’t great, but the trajectory was telling. In September 2019 and in June 2020, 22% of whites said “yes,” compared to 16% of Hispanics and 17% of blacks. In June, the same 22% of whites were optimistic, but the number of optimistic Hispanics jumped 10 points to 26%, while the optimism among blacks nearly doubled, from 17% to 33%.
It’s a reminder that the best answer to “how’s it going?” may be “compared to what?”
