Joe points out that despite the fact that we continue to experience an economic boon in the United States (see his post for some of the statistics), people remain perpetually pessimistic about how things are going. Why? Unfortunately, Joe doesn't seem to answer this question. (I'd be very interested to hear what he thinks causes this outlook.)
I'm sure some of it comes from the fact that the media thrives on simplicity and negativity. I'm sure another big piece of the puzzle is the vast ignorance about the basics of economics. (For example, only 13% of Americans approve of how President Bush has "handled" the high gas prices!)
Related to the ignorance-of-sound-economics explanation is the false picture that most have concerning how money works in an economy. It seems like the default position is that our resources and money are like one giant pie. The bigger my piece of the pie, the smaller your piece. So my gain becomes your loss. (This seems to be the idea behind the old canard that "the rich get richer while the poor get poorer," whereas the actual facts show that the rich get richer and the poor get richer.)
Behind all of this may be a new sense of guilt. Just as the word "humility" has undergone a conceptual transformation from not thinking too highly of oneself to having epistemic uncertainty about everything, so I think we are experiencing a similar transformation of the concept of guilt. What used to be a moral sense that we had done something wrong now becomes conflated with compassion and is a sense that we should feel "guilty" and pessimistic if others are worse off than us. So, for example, if you were to ask American Joe on the Street "How are you doing financially?" he might say that he's doing just fine, sales are up, just got a raise, etc. But if you ask him how the American economy is doing, he has this sense that others are doing worse than him, he feels guilty about it, and therefore offers a guilt-driven pessimistic answer to the question. I'm not sure Joe really feels guilty for doing well, but rather that he would feel guilty for giving the optimistic answer.
That's my provincial hypothesis at least. I'd be interested to hear your take on the matter.
In this morning's Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan offers a different answer, though I don't think it necessarily contradicts the one I've offered:
If you are a normal person with the normal amount of political awareness, you might see it this way:
The Republicans talk about cutting spending, but they increase it--a lot. They stand for making government smaller, but they keep making it bigger. They say they're concerned about our borders, but they're not securing them. And they seem to think we're slobs for worrying. Republicans used to be sober and tough about foreign policy, but now they're sort of romantic and full of emotionalism. They talk about cutting taxes, and they have, but the cuts are provisional, temporary. Beyond that, there's something creepy about increasing spending so much and not paying the price right away but instead rolling it over and on to our kids, and their kids.
So, the normal voter might think, maybe the Democrats. But Democrats are big spenders, Democrats are big government, Democrats will roll the cost onto our kids, and on foreign affairs they're--what? Cynical? Confused? In a constant daily cringe about how their own base will portray them? All of the above.
Where does such a voter go, and what does such a voter do? It is odd to live in the age of options, when everyone's exhausted by choice, and feel your options for securing political progress are so limited. One party has beliefs it doesn't act on. The other doesn't seem to have beliefs, only impulses.
What's a voter to do? Maybe stay home, have the neighbors over for some barbecue, and then answer the phone when a pollster calls asking for a few minutes to answer some questions. When they get to the part about whether America is on the right track or the wrong track, boy, the voter knows the answer.
