Nation on Wrong Track According to 81% of Americans
Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Everybody believe the country is headed in the wrong direction.
New York Times, April 5th 2008
Americans are more dissatisfied with the country’s direction than at any time since the New York Times/CBS News poll began asking about the subject in the early 1990s, according to the latest poll.
In the poll, 81 percent of respondents said they believed “things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track,” up from 69 percent a year ago and 35 percent in early 2002.
Although the public mood has been darkening since the early days of the war in Iraq, it has taken a new turn for the worse in the last few months, as the economy has seemed to slip into recession. There is now nearly a national consensus that the country faces significant problems.
A majority of nearly every demographic and political group — Democrats and Republicans, men and women, residents of cities and rural areas, college graduates and those who finished only high school — say the United States is headed in the wrong direction. Seventy-eight percent of respondents said the country was worse off than five years ago; just 4 percent said it was better off.
The dissatisfaction is especially striking because public opinion usually hits its low point only in the months and years after an economic downturn, not at the beginning of one. Today, however, Americans report being deeply worried about the country even though many say their own personal finances are still in fairly good shape. Click here to read more in the New York Times.
April 4th, 2008 at 8:35 am
To understand the full meaning of the answer, we need to know the complete question. Unfortunately, people listen to the headline, or read the article and don’t question where it came from. Why are we on the wrong track? What track is wrong? Unemployment is up — all the way to 5.1%! ooooooh. Unemployment under Clinton averaged 5.5%, but those were good times. 95% of homeowners are able to and making their mortgage payments. But, we don’t talk about that — oh no. That is the problem with inaccurate or propaganda reporting - say it long enough and people will believe it!