Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Which Americans are Dissatisfied?

In a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, 36 percent of Americans said the country is on the right track, and 60 percent said we are headed in the wrong direction. But if you break that down by party, 89 percent of Republicans opted for the wrong track, but only 36 percent of Democrats did.

As I noted before, these numbers are weirdly divorced from what people say about their own lives; in this poll 87 percent of both Democrats and Republicans said they were satisfied with their personal lives. Answers to the right/wrong track question are overwhelmingly political; those Democrats who said "wrong track" were probably thinking about the Republicans in Congress and Citizens United.

If you want a simple explanation for why more Democrats haven't embraced Bernie Sanders' "revolution", Dana Milbank has one:
Democrats aren't as unhappy as he needed them to be.
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2 comments:

  1. G. VerlorenMarch 17, 2016 at 4:55 AM

    So overwhelmingly the people who think the country is on the wrong track are those who are clinging to a fading place in the sun, afraid of losing their special privileges and entitlements.

    Shifting the country toward a more fair and just society works directly counter to the interests of those who benefit most from unfairness and injustice. As women and minorities continue to achieve greater parity, obviously the white patriarchists are going to become increasingly dissatisfied.

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  2. pootrsoxMarch 17, 2016 at 1:11 PM

    I regularly answer that question "wrong track" because I am deeply distressed at the direction the GOP is forcing the country to move toward.

    But I am pretty sure Mr/Ms Verloren is correct about those on the right.

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