FT Wrote:
Elvis Fu Wrote:
The bigger issue is that far too many people only buy into democracy when their team wins.
Perfectly stated.
You have a good point here, TCB, but I am talking about the mood of the electorate as a whole, not, as I said a few posts up, the urine soaked, diaper eating gun nuts of the tea party. I think they are a facile way of looking at, and dismissing, genuine anger.
A new Pew poll finds historic levels of unhappiness about the federal government and its role in the lives of average Americans, unrest that is at the foundation of what is shaping up to be a strongly anti-incumbent political year.
The current conditions in public opinion amount to a "perfect storm" of disgust/distrust toward government, according to Pew poll director Andy Kohut, who cites "a dismal economy, an unhappy public, bitter partisan-based backlash, and epic discontent with Congress and elected officials" as the critical factors in this building tempest.
While the report -- all 140 pages of it -- is chock full of great data, a few numbers stand out as typifying the current discontent coursing through the public.
* Roughly one in five voters (22 percent) said they can trust the government in Washington always or almost always, the lowest ebb on that question in 50 years.
* Just 38 percent said the federal government has an overall positive effect on their daily lives while 43 percent see its impact as broadly negative. Those numbers mark a considerable reversal from an October 1997 Pew poll when 50 percent said the government had a positive effect on their lives while 31 percent said it had a negative one.
* The public blames Members of Congress more than the system itself for their malaise. A majority (52 percent) said the political system can work but Members are the problem. Roughly one in three (31 percent) blame the system, not the Members.
Those soaring levels of dissatisfaction have to worry incumbents of both parties -- although the electoral pain will almost certainly be felt more by Democrats since, well, they have a lot more incumbents in the House and Senate.
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Throughout his life, from childhood until death, he was beset by severe swings of mood. His depressions frequently encouraged, and were exacerbated by, his various vices. His character mixed a superficial Enlightenment sensibility for reason and taste with a genuine and somewhat Romantic love of the sublime and a propensity for occasionally puerile whimsy.
harry Wrote:
I understand that you, of all people, know this crisis and, in your own way, are working to address it. You, the madras-pantsed julip-sipping Southern cracker and me, the oldman hippie California fruit cake are brothers in the struggle to save our country.
FT Wrote:
LooGAR (the straw that stirs the drink)
