Gallup has published its latest reading of the strength of public pride.
Steve Benen comments:
Throughout his brief career in politics, Donald Trump tends to talk about his vision in broad strokes. The president, indifferent toward governing and public policy, has talked up vague goals. What does Trump want? To promote some amorphous sense of “greatness.” To make the United States “tremendous” in ways he’s unable to identify, but we’re supposed to intuitively understand.
Trump spoke to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in 2018 and boasted, “[W]e’re restoring our confidence and our pride.” It spoke to the thematic point of his message: the president has spent much of his term telling people that he’s successfully brought a degree of swagger to American patriotism.
As NBC News’ Benjy Sarlin noted this morning, “Trump’s never been a narrow policy guy, but to the extent he had an overarching campaign promise I’d say ‘restoring pride in America’ was one.”
And yet, the president appears to have failed quite spectacularly on this front.
Benen is concentrating his fire on President Trump, but it’s quite clear from the graph that pride has been falling since 2013, or shortly thereafter – the middle of the Obama years. This should be discussed.
So let’s talk about measuring “pride”. What goes into pride? Perception, it’s perception of how well we think we’re doing, both concretely and abstractly, from economy to human rights.
So why does it start falling in the Obama years? From a rational, objective viewpoint, it’s not easy to understand: the economy had recovered from the Great Recession, we had recognized the moral failings of the Bush years and, at least, tried to correct for them. The implementation of the ACA (“ObamaCare”) took us on a journey that many Americans desire to make – government supported healthcare.
But during these years there was a lot of Republican propaganda. I remember numerous reports of polls indicating Republicans believed the economy was getting worse, not better. For those of a paranoid turn of mind, let me provide some fodder: the Republicans faced an existential crisis as the United States, under the leadership of Obama’s team, pulled out of the recession and began to prosper again. Faced with a side by side comparison that they could not hope to win, Republican propagandists turned to the usual tool: lies. Given the distrust of mainstream media, as I’ve experienced it, and even government numbers, just prior to the Trump victory, it’s not surprising the conservative movement, already traumatized every time an abortion occurs, might feel their pride slipping. Add in a bit of racism…. I actually struggle to come up with a more credible theory than frank mendacity.
Since the election of Trump, we’ve seen racism unmasked, as in Charlottesville and Minneapolis, and an Administration that, quite candidly, is the worst we’ve ever seen or read about. Is it any surprise that the decline continues? Liberals certainly are depressed, especially those who thought we were finished with that problem; but for the conservatives who watch virtually any television, they have to be aware of the problems showing themselves, principally in the area of racism. Remember, the national approval polls didn’t really see any drop for Trump due to the Coronavirus or consequent economic collapse, because it’s a very unusual occurrence and he could be excused, although. truth be told, the Federal government exists to foresee and deal with such threats before they become threats.
But his response to the racism protests has been utterly inadequate, and most of us know it.
And knowing we’re led by President Irrelevant, who was barely elected but nevertheless occupies the office, is a discouraging thought.
