Gallup: Everyone except Democrats is feeling unusually optimistic about the country's direction right now
(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
According to Gallup, Americans' satisfaction with their country's direction is at a 12-year high at 38 percent. That's the highest level since September 2005, right around the time Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and sent this measure of national sentiment plummeting.
What's more, nearly every group that Gallup breaks out in its analysis — men and women, all age groups and all education levels — was significantly more positive on the country's direction when polled in May and June than they were in surveys from March and April. Republicans jumped 14 points to 68 percent satisfied with the nation's direction, and independents jumped 11 points to 36 percent satisfied.
The one group that remains as sour on America's direction as before is self-identified Democrats, unchanged from their meager 13 percent level of optimism.So what happened in the last month or two? It's a tough question, and I think it's especially hard to grasp for Twitter-addicted political journalists to grasp, given that they tend to be left-leaning anyway.
The fact is, if you just stop paying attention to the daily circus that is the Trump administration — the latest stylistic offense-creating controversy over whatever Trump or his henchmen say, as opposed to substantive issues (and also controversies) that are more likely to matter to most people's lives — then this poll number is a lot easier to understand. Things are going well, the economy is growing, unemployment is down, and nobody pays attention to (the almost uniformly negative) political journalism as much as you do.
I think most people cope with the Trump era by just consuming a little less news than they used to — or at least, a lot less than you do if you're reading this.
Through that lens, it's also easier to understand Trump's recently elevated approval rating, which according to the RealClearPolitics average is just a few points away from its all-time high at his inauguration. Ordinary people don't care about Russia, or Stormy Daniels, or emoluments, or any of the other things that keep the #Resistance up at night. I think a lot more Americans will care about the Kim Jong Un meeting (which a large majority of people believes went well), the DHS issue of separating illegal immigrant minors from parents, trouble with Obamacare, and tax cuts that are showing up in their paycheck.
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