A new Yahoo News/YouGov Poll reveals that while 54% of Americans believe that America was a “shining city on a hill” when Ronald Reagan used that phrase in his final speech as president, 62% of Americans now say the country is no longer a model for the rest of the world.
U.S. Lags Behind Many Rich Countries
“The United States is different. In nearly every other high-income country, people have both become richer over the last three decades and been able to enjoy substantially longer lifespans,” the New York Times reports.
“But not in the United States. Even as average incomes have risen, much of the economic gains have gone to the affluent — and life expectancy has risen only three years since 1990. There is no other developed country that has suffered such a stark slowdown in lifespans.”
“Why has this happened? There are multiple causes. But one big one is a lack of political power among the bulk of the population.”
Chart of the Day
A new Pew Research national poll has this stunning finding: The percentage of Republicans who say they’re satisfied with the direction of the country has dropped below 50% — all the way to 19%.
Philip Bump: “New data from the Pew Research Center bolsters the idea that Trump’s position in the polls is worsening as a function of what’s happening in the country. Specifically, it seems likely that the pandemic is pushing his approval ratings lower, which, in turn, is making his position in the presidential contest more precarious.”
Texas Hispanic Population Soars In Texas
Texas Tribune: “Texas’ Hispanic population has grown by more than 2 million since 2010, according to new population estimates released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau, and the state’s demographer now predicts that Hispanics will be the state’s largest population group by mid-2021.”
The U.S. Is Falling Behind
Catherine Rampell: “Americans’ belief in American exceptionalism is declining — and that could be a good thing. National narcissism has rendered us complacent, even impotent, in the face of multiple crises.”
“On our biggest societal problems, the United States seems to have given up. Not because we can’t do better — but because many political leaders, particularly Republicans, apparently don’t think we need to. Their faith that America is already Living Its Best Life means there’s no need to learn from peer countries, or even gauge our relative performance.”
Big Majority Says Country on Wrong Track
A new AP-NORC poll finds just 24% of Americans say the country is headed in the right direction, down from 33% a month ago and 42% in March.
“Trump’s overall approval rating during this moment of tremendous upheaval sits at 39%. Though that’s down slightly from the 43% who approved of his job performance in February and March, it’s well within the narrow range where his ratings have stayed throughout his time in office. That suggests that the president’s most enthusiastic supporters have remained loyal throughout the pandemic and other crises.”
U.S. National Pride Falls to Record Low
A new Gallup survey finds that Americans’ pride in the U.S. has hit the lowest point ever recorded amid public health and economic crises brought on by the coronavirus pandemic and civil unrest following the death of George Floyd in police custody.
Big Majority Say Things Are Out of Control
A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds 8 out of 10 voters believe that things are out of control in the United States, with majorities still concerned about the spread of the coronavirus, pessimistic about the economy returning to normal before next year and down on President Trump’s ability to unite the nation.
Big Majority Say America Is In Bad Shape
A new Politico/Morning Consult poll finds 69% of Americans say things in the U.S. are “pretty seriously” on the wrong track.
America Is at a Low Ebb
Dan Balz: “Pain and destruction strangle hopes and dreams of people across the country. People are dying — alone from a terrible virus or from a knee on the neck in full public view. Cities burn, destroying businesses and inflaming divisions. Tens of millions are out of work. The president makes it all worse.”
“This is the state of the union as the nation reels from multiple blows, each one arriving with swift and overwhelming force. Long-standing, untreated inequalities have been exposed anew, and they, in turn, have highlighted the country’s real vulnerabilities. What has been just below the surface, known but barely acknowledged and rarely addressed seriously, is now impossible to ignore.”
“America experienced a wave of burning cities in the aftermath of a racial killing in 1968. America was hit by a pandemic in 1918 that killed even more people than the 102,000 who have died of the coronavirus. America was battered by a Great Depression in the 1930s and laid low by a Great Recession just a decade ago. America has never experienced all of this kind of tumult in the same moment. It is more than the system can bear, and people grieve for the country.”
A Third of Americans Show Signs of Depression
“A third of Americans are showing signs of clinical anxiety or depression, Census Bureau data shows, the most definitive and alarming sign yet of the psychological toll exacted by the coronavirus pandemic,” the Washington Post reports.
Millennials Are Now the Largest Generation
Millennials have surpassed Baby Boomers as the nation’s largest living adult generation, according to population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, Pew Research reports.
American Democracy May Be Dying
Paul Krugman: “Yet the scariest news of the past week didn’t involve either epidemiology or economics; it was the travesty of an election in Wisconsin, where the Supreme Court required that in-person voting proceed despite the health risks and the fact that many who requested absentee ballots never got them.”
“Why was this so scary? Because it shows that America as we know it may not survive much longer. The pandemic will eventually end; the economy will eventually recover. But democracy, once lost, may never come back. And we’re much closer to losing our democracy than many people realize.”
Virus Could Reinforce Liberal Politics of Generation Z
“As the pandemic and its economic havoc exacerbate disparities, some Gen Zers see grim validation of their support for the government-run programs and social-welfare policies less popular with their parents and grandparents,” the Washington Post reports.
“Seventy percent of them believe the government should be doing more to solve problems, compared with 53% of Gen Xers and 49% of baby boomers.”
Trending on the Political Dictionary
What people are searching for in the Political Dictionary sometimes tells you a lot about our politics. Here are the top terms over the last 30 days:
Most Voters Identify as Center-Right
Gallup: “As Americans continued to lean more Democratic than Republican in their party preferences in 2019, the ideological balance of the country remained center-right, with 37% of Americans, on average, identifying as conservative during the year, 35% as moderate and 24% as liberal.”
U.S. Had Slowest Growth Rate In Century
“The past year’s population growth rate in the United States was the slowest in a century due to declining births, increasing deaths and the slowdown of international migration,” the AP reports.
“The U.S. grew from 2018 to 2019 by almost a half percent, or about 1.5 million people, with the population standing at 328 million this year, according to population estimates.”
Most Americans Optimistic About 2020
A USA Today/Suffolk University Poll this month asked Americans if they thought things would get better or worse in their own lives in 2020.
By an overwhelming 80% to 11%, they predicted their lives would be better.
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