Reasons To Be Cheerful, Reasons To Be Miserable... In The Age Of Trump

Christopher Ingraham wrote up a Gallup polling report for the Washington Post that shows "the Trump era has ushered in the largest happiness gap between white and nonwhite Americans in nearly two decades. More than 90 percent of white Americans," wrote Ingraham, "say they are 'very' or 'fairly' happy these days, a number that has held steady since the early 2000s. Seventy-seven percent of nonwhites can say the same, which is 11 percentage points lower than the last time Gallup posed the question, early in the Obama years."

For most of the past two decades, whites and nonwhites were generally a few points apart on happiness. That briefly changed around 2005, when the federal government’s botched response to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans was interpreted by many black Americans as a sign of institutional racism. That year, nonwhites were 10 percentage points less likely to report being happy than whites. But today’s 14-point gap is even larger.

Looks like someone has a reason too be cheerful

Record nonwhite discontent in the era of a president who weaponizes racial resentment may not come as a particular surprise. In 2018, nearly half of American Latinos said their circumstances had worsened in the first year of the Trump administration. Last summer, 80 percent of black Americans and 55 percent of Hispanics told Quinnipiac they consider Trump a racist. The Trump era also has coincided with a surge in hate crimes, particularly against Hispanics.

The relative unhappiness of nonwhites has driven the overall level of American happiness to its lowest level in more than a half-century of polling. Overall, Gallup reports, 86 percent of Americans report being “somewhat” or “fairly” happy, marking the fifth time happiness has fallen below 90 percent in 23 readings since 1948. The share who say they’re “not too happy” has more than doubled since 2007.

Previous Gallup research has found that Americans have grown more stressed, worried and angry during the Trump era. Last year. the United Nations’ seventh World Happiness Report found the United States ranked 19th in the world for happiness, a slide of five places relative to 2017.

Letter of the week. Note the cc

The growing gloominess is at odds with many of the most closely watched economic indicators: U.S. stocks continue to break their own record highs; unemployment hovers near 50-year lows; and the United States is in the midst of its longest economic expansion in history.

For a time, many economists and policymakers assumed the top-line numbers could serve as a rough proxy for quality of life in America. This assumption made a fair amount of sense in the era of shared prosperity in the middle of the last century. Employee wages kept pace with shareholder profits. The necessities of life-- a decent home, a quality education, good medical care-- were more or less affordable for workers in the middle of the income distribution.

But in the past few decades, more and more of the economy’s spoils have flowed to the already wealthy, leaving less for everyone else. A surging stock market doesn’t mean much to the more than 50 percent of Americans who own no stocks. Unemployment may be low, but many workers find themselves stuck in low-paying jobs that don’t cover basic necessities.

Who will this make happier (other than KKK members)? The Trumpist Regime decided to celebrate Michelle Obama's birthday yesterday by substituting pizza and french fries for fresh vegetables in school menus. "The U.S. Department of Agriculture has taken another whack at former first lady Michelle Obama’s signature achievement: Establishing stricter nutritional standards for school breakfasts and lunches. And on her birthday. USDA Deputy Under Secretary Brandon Lipps announced new proposed rules for the Food and Nutrition Service that would allow schools to cut the amount of vegetables and fruits required at lunch and breakfasts while giving them the ability to sell more pizza, burgers and fries to students." Trump campaign contributors in the junk food industry were giddy at the prospect of millions more in profits while nutritionists and public health specialists condemned the move.

A savvy Democrat in Congress told me in a private conversation about a post of mine we were discussing last night that in 2016 "Trump won the Republican primary primarily on name-recognition, which is what 'low information' voters rely on. (Same thing with Biden now.) Trump 'won' the general election, though, on the basis of a well-informed choice between two major candidates who both had 100% name-ID. In that case, surprisingly few people voted for either candidate; the great majority of the votes were against one or the other.'None of the above' would have won in a landslide. So you really can’t put that one on the low-information voter. At this point, I think that it’s a competitive race largely because Trump does have a huge name-ID advantage. But in the general election, he’s almost certainly the candidate who most people will hate more, no matter whom the Democrats put up. The more worrisome things to me is that we ought to be able to get ourselves out of this lesser-of-two-evils thing now, but we can’t, because no one believes-- or cares about-- a damn thing we are saying. They care a lot more about some crazy 'caravan' thing that never even reaches the border (much less where they live) than they do about the cost of health insurance, or anything else that Democrats claim we can help with.  Basically, everyone on both sides is obsessed with what’s going to be taken away from them-- guns, the right to an abortion, whatever--because they absolutely don’t believe that anyone could possibly make things better."

Except Bernie: someone to believe in. Look at this tweet from Doctors For Bernie. They're bringing up something that is very real and very present in the lives of millions of people, if not about student debt, then medical debt or housing insecurity or endless wars or-- for younger people-- the Climate Crisis:

Now listen to this Rod Stewart classic (basically, classic for people in their 60s and 70s, Biden and Trump supporters):





This week Emerson released a new poll of New Hampshire Democratic voters, showing how Bernie has been surging and is now clearly in first place at 23% compared to 18% for Mayo Pete and 14% each for Status Quo Joe and Elizabeth Warren. To rationalize Bernie's dominance, they write it off to the kids, "defining young voters" as anyone under 50. Poll director Spencer Kimball wrote that "Looking at ideology, Sanders leads with voters who describe themselves as 'very liberal' with 34%, followed by Warren with 29%, Buttigieg with 18%, Yang with 8% and Biden with 5%. Among voters who describe themselves as 'somewhat liberal,' Sanders continues to lead with 26%, followed by Buttigieg with 21%, Warren with 15%, Biden with 13% and Klobuchar with 12%. And among voters who describe themselves as 'moderate' or 'conservative,' Biden leads with 18%, followed by Buttigieg with 16%, Sanders with 15%, Klobuchar with 12%, and Steyer with 8%."

New Hampshire Democrats say that healthcare is the most important issue and those people overwhelmingly back Bernie (35%) followed by a distant Mayo Pete (19%) and Status Quo Joe (17%). Among voters who say the economy is the most important issue, Bernie also leads. He gets 23% of that group, compared to 20% for Elizabeth Warren and Mayo Pete at 17%, followed by Status Quo Joe at 17%.

The national Ipsos poll that came out this week for Reuters doesn't seem to show a lot of shiny, happy people as far as I can see. 58% of registered voters say the country is headed in the wrong direction-- and that shoots up to 81% among registered Democrats.

Among registered voters, Trump's job approval is just 38% and his job disapproval is 56% (and 55% among Independent voters). 45% say Trump should be removed from office, 14% say he should be censured and 31% say charges against him should be dismissed. This doesn't sound like a cohort of people who can possibly he happy, at least not when they watch the evening news, regardless of channel. And now a version of all this from the wild fringes of the far, far right: