AMERICA IS THE “ANGRIEST” OF DEMOCRATIC NATIONS

…Angry 2016 American Voters

 

The 2016 election is more critical because emotional voters usually don’t make good decision. 

 

Nearly half of all Americans are angry, and no groups are angrier than American whites and the Republicans.  This is according to a new NBC News/Survey Monkey/Esquire on-line poll about outrage in the country.

 

Some Americans ask, “Why is an idiot like Donald Trump so high in the polls?”  Well, the answer is because Trump says what these angry groups believe.

 

Based on the on-line poll, overall, 49% of Americans are angrier now than they were one year ago.  And American whites are the angriest.  54% say they have become more outraged over the past year. The reality is that the 54% of whites are more angry than Latinos at 43%and African-Americans at 33%.

 

Now, it’s true that some of this anger is totally unreasonable and wrong. 

 

One group was angry saying that the government is trying to take away America’s guns, which is not true.  One group was upset about all the lies from those out of Washington DC, but in many ways, that is true.

 

73% percent of whites said they get angry at least once per day.  That’s compared to 66% of Hispanics and 56% of blacks.

 

The poll also found Republicans are angrier than Democrats. 61% of Republicans say current events irk them more today than a year ago, compared to 42% of Democrats.

 

The anger is both with what’s going on in Congress and their total dysfunction, and all the police shootings of unarmed blacks, these are the two main items that are making Americans most upset.  Another issue is all the lies coming from the politicians in this election year.  The older whites are angry because their country is being taken over by foreigners and that the children won’t be doing as well as the parents.

 

What was the biggest surprise is that American women are angrier than the men.  Women are slightly more outraged than men at 53% to 44%.  58% of white women say they are angrier, compared to 44% of non-white women.

 

One publication has stated that we as Americans are now starting to believe that we are “…living in an American-Italy, and are being hobbled by dishonest leaders with such corruption, that only a fool would trust an American politician”.

 

One example is that most US Republicans think President Barack Obama was dishonest and he “knowingly lied” to pass the ACA Health Care law.

 

The poll showed that fewer than 1 in 5 trust the government in Washington. Confidence in Congress has fallen to a record low with a congressional approval rating of 9%.   America today, as it is in Italy and Greece, only 1 in 10 voters express trust or confidence in the national government.

 

In a poll of 107 countries by Transparency International, they found that Americans are more likely, even than Italians, to say they feel that the police, business, government and the media are all “corrupt or extremely corrupt”.

 

What was the most revealing in the poll is that 52% of the country said that just the idea of the "American dream" no longer holds true. The survey also found that the group that is the most pessimistic about the idea that “any American can work hard and get ahead” is those Americans between 45 and 64.

 

The US Congress has had a very unproductive few years.  The Republicans shutting down of the federal government was a notable low point. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) had admitted that they subjected the Tea Party and other political groups to special scrutiny, which enraged the conservatives. However, to put this in real perspective to other countries, last year, Italy’s richest media tycoon and its ex-prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, was convicted of tax fraud, of paying an underage prostitute and major abuse of his power.  So far, it hasn’t gotten that bad in America….or has it?

 

The difference between the US and other countries is that with other countries, the anger is across all political parties.  In America, it is more of a partisan divide.

 

As an example, half of America's voters think President Obama lied to pass his health care plan. But it is 8 in 10 Republicans that think he lied, while fewer than 1 in 4 Democrats think he fibbed.

 

Historically, 80% of black Americans have consistently said that most people in authority cannot be trusted.  But the recent decline in trusting in the government involves white Americans becoming the less trusting,

 

The American people’s trust in institutions and the government has risen and fallen over the years in line with external events.  It plunged after the Watergate scandal, and it always declines in any recessions. Yet something new seems to be happening. Anti-government cynicism is feeding on problems in the society such as police brutality, income inequality and the feeling that the country is on the wrong track.  The lack of action within the US Congress for doing the people’s business over the past few years has just made the problem that much worse..

 

However, as a democracy, the problem of trust within the American people today is not a minor issue.

 

America faces a crisis of mutual resentment between rival groups.   Sharply-divided voter blocs are alarmingly willing to believe that the other party is up to no good or taking more than their fair share. Today’s polls describing America as a divided nation of total corruption are not to be taken literally. But they are a warning that America could be on the way to becoming a society that, “totally distrusts its government”.

 

Unfortunately, with individuals such as Donald Trump and Ted Cruz spouting that today’s Americans have been led by stupid and corrupt American politicians, this could drive the US in becoming a mistrusting society.

 

The reality is that a small “d” democracy nation cannot exist if there is total distrust of the government.  The problem could get a whole lot worse.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2016