Americans, according to Gallup, are facing a giant deficit in
optimism. From CBS.com: Fewer than four-in-10 Americans (39
percent) rate the US in a positive manner – the most negative
feedback the country has produced since 1979. A new Gallup poll
finds that Americans are as negative about the country’s
prospects as they have been in more than three decades.
Americans are more upbeat in their predictions of where the U.S.
will be in five years (48 percent positive), but this is the
lowest rating since an August 1979 Gallup poll was conducted.
The deficit is not evenly distributed, by the way: The
negativity about the current state of the US has a politically
partisan split – Republicans stated that the country’s best days
have already passed and Democrats say the best days have not
happened yet. Seventy-five percent of Democrats gave positive
reviews of how the nation will be five years from now, but only
15 percent of Republicans were positive – a 60 percent partisan
gap. Which seems right, somehow. But also