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Chart of the day: Anger in the United States

Please attend to the following chart. I have something I want to show you.

The red line is from a CNN poll asking people if they're angry about the way things are going. Unfortunately, it only goes back to 2008, so I've overlaid it with the blue line, which is a Gallup poll asking people if they're dissatisfied with the way things are going. From 2008-2021 they follow each other pretty closely, so it's reasonable to think they're measuring roughly the same thing.

I've also marked off economic recessions with the gray bars. During the first two recessions, in 1981 and 1989, the public response follows a similar path: people are angry as the economy gets worse, but then anger subsides as the economy improves.

That makes sense. But look at what happens in 2000: Anger starts to rise before the recession begins. And then it keeps going up, even though the recession was short and mild. It keeps going up through 2008 and then doesn't respond to the Great Recession at all. Nor does it respond to the 2020 recession—which began before the COVID pandemic—or even to the pandemic itself. In a nutshell, anger rises sharply all through the aughts and then stays at a seething, red-faced level for the next decade.

So what are we all so angry about? In the past, it was pretty easy to say: we got mad when the economy sucked.

But not anymore. We're just angry all the time. Do I have to explain why?

103 thoughts on “Chart of the day: Anger in the United States

  1. middleoftheroaddem

    Yes Fox News is neither news nor is it an agent for good. HOWEVER, get real:

    - In a country with 340 million people, the top rate Fox personality gets 3 or 4 million viewers or 1% percent of the US.

    - If Fox News went away tomorrow, the audience still exists. Further, a Fox like replacement would come forward.

    - While not nearly full of BS, it feel bias to only look at one side of this issue.
    Liberal outlets such as MSNBC also contribute to partisan feelings....

    1. Maynard Handley

      I'd bring up a different point.
      American's are remarkably loathe to consider the experiences of other countries, even when those experiences are directly relevant. So let's ask the question:
      How has "anger" changed in other countries?

      Britain, yes up. So, sure, blame that on Murdoch, same phenomenon. But even in the anglosphere, we have Canada? New Zealand? I do not know their relationship to Sky/Fox/Murdoch or their "anger" trajectories.

      Then let's go outside the Anglosphere. It's not exactly "anger" but there are certainly some countries (eg Brazil, Philippines, Hungary, India) that have elected populist leaders. I don't believe Fox/Murdoch was relevant in any of them.

      Which gets us to a more subtle set of theses:
      (a) there are some countries that have become more populist. On the other hand is this some sort of global trend, or are there always some countries zigging while others zag, then ten years later they swap places?

      (b) if there is some sort of discontent with modernity, then there will always be those who fan it, whether nihilistically to make a few bucks, or as true believers. When you see the same sort of behavior in the US, UK, India, Hungary, and Brazil, perhaps latching onto Fox is short-sighted; they are simply filling a pre-existing void, one that, in those other nations, was filled by different entities (eg Berlusconi in Italy).

      In other words the deeper question is not "Fox, WTF?" it is "why are so many willing to buy what Fox is selling?" That's the essence of the various tracts that have tried to answer the question in a (somewhat) global context, from Peter Turchin and Elite Overproduction, to Hill+Girdusky's "They're not listening".

      Screaming at Fox is a game for the weak-minded, but, Kevin, you're better than that. The more important questions have to do with things like
      - can a society *last* in the absence of (at least rhetorically coercive) machinery for enforcing conformity? Chomsky wanted an end to "Manufacturing Consensus" -- is he happy with what replaced it? And it's not like we should be surprised by this, we go the same things the last time we got an equivalent upset in *decentralized* "vocal power", ie the Protestant Reformation (printing).

      - can an elite whose claims to legitimacy are grounded in phrases like "we each experience our own reality" ever command any sort of consensus, even in the face of existential crises?

      - is democracy ultimately an infeasible idea? Can we return to something like what kinda existed say pre-1968, where democracy as a legal+political concept was not considered equivalent to "my opinion, about anything whatsoever, is just as good as yours, and to even hint otherwise is socially unaceptable", ie one person one vote was not considered equivalent to one person one valid opinion?

      If I had to lay out a timeline, I'd say the problem comes when higher ed is expanded beyond perhaps 10% of the population. Beyond 10% moves higher ed from people who are (mostly, anyway) both genuinely smarter and genuinely interested primarily in truth to people who are primarily interested in credentialism, and lands up giving credentials to a large number of people who are primarily interested in tribalism rather than truth. Which very rapidly (we've seen it happen, over about 40 years) degenerates into "why should I trust X just because she has a PhD; plenty of idiots get PhDs and say idiotic things" -- and that's true, under a regime where too many credentials are handed out, it is in fact the case that just having a PhD is not much of an indicator of wisdom, intelligence, or prioritization of truth over comfort.

      1. Jasper_in_Boston

        In other words the deeper question is not "Fox, WTF?" it is "why are so many willing to buy what Fox is selling?"

        It's because in the United States, to a far greater extent than other nations, government doesn't meet the needs of the non-rich. This undermines confidence in the public sector (and society in general) more intensively than in other high income countries. We see this very starkly indeed with the greater reach and influence of vaccine skepticism in the US. I think the main reason government is so tilted toward the wealthy in the US is vetocratic Madisonianism. And this same Madisonianism, I might add, doesn't only help fuel distrust of government (by blocking the safety net expansions that enable the non-rich to feel they have a stake), it also makes it harder to enact the very sorts of media regulations that, in other rich democracies, curb the dissemination of conspiracy theories and fake news in the first place. Rinse and repeat.

        1. jte21

          Reminds me of the old joke that made the rounds during the great Recession, but remains as relevant as ever for understanding American politics: A hedge fund billionaire, a Teamster, and unemployed guy are sitting around a table. In the middle is a plate with ten cookies on it. The billionaire reaches over and takes 9 cookies and the two other guys are just kind of staring at the last remaining cookie. The billionaire than leans over to unemployed guy and whispers "hey, I think that union guy wants your cookie."

          1. jte21

            You can replace the Teamster character with the minority/immigrant/liberal strawman of your choice and the joke still works.

            1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

              Absolutely.

              & if the unemployed guy is white, he & the Teamster will split the cookie 50-50 as long as sluts have to live a 4 months 3 weeks 2 days existence in order to get an abortion.

        2. Maynard Handley

          "It's because in the United States, to a far greater extent than other nations, government doesn't meet the needs of the non-rich."

          Maybe so but
          - America has always been that way
          - Other countries with different levels of welfare state, from the UK to Sweden to Hungary have been subject to the same phenomena.

          Your post is not an explanation, it's a classic example of claiming that your politics is correct, REGARDLESS of what happens.
          Which is fine if your goal is preaching to the choir, but I am interested in an UNDERSTANDING, not in a sermon.

          1. Jasper_in_Boston

            America has always been that way

            Not so. After FDR was elected the groundwork was laid for a society in which gains were widely shared. This mixed-economy consensus began to weaken in the late 60s. We're seeing the results now all around us.

            Other countries with different levels of welfare state, from the UK to Sweden to Hungary have been subject to the same phenomena.

            I'm not sure how relevant the example of a small country run by Communist dictators for nearly a half century tells us about our own situation. But I don't think the UK situation is nearly as dire as America's. Any UK government that lays a glove on the NHS (to cite one example) would be crucified by the electorate. And they enacted genuine national healthcare nearly 75 years ago! What's our excuse? And there's no serious prospect of a decent into actual authoritarianism in Britain anytime soon. Indeed, Boris Johnson is purportedly being told by his own party he faces imminent loss of power (not exactly the situation we saw with GOP/Trump, was it?). But in any event my argument is not that some of the same forces that play out in the US aren't observable elsewhere; my argument is that America's unique constitutional machinery renders it less adaptable to changed circumstances than other high income democracies, and this dynamic affects the US in a number of ways, including courser and more intractable political conflict than is the norm in its peers.

            but I am interested in an UNDERSTANDING, not in a sermon.

            American political outcomes are an outlier among rich democracies. American public policy is likewise an outlier among rich democracies. Something must explain this. To me the elephant in the room is Madisonianism.

            1. JonF311

              Re: Any UK government that lays a glove on the NHS (to cite one example) would be crucified by the electorate.

              In the US Social security is in that position. Remember when the GOP, newly triumphant with a "permanent majority" began to consider privatizing a mere 2% of the program, and the voter reaction was so cold that Congress dropped it like a radioactive turd.

    2. Jasper_in_Boston

      If Fox News went away tomorrow, the audience still exists. Further, a Fox like replacement would come forward.

      This is indeed a problem. Media investors know that feeding disinformation to right wing Americans is a license to print money. If Fox went out of business tomorrow morning, it seems unlikely those profits wouldn't be scooped up by others eager to give a platform to the likes of Tucker, Sean and Laura.

    3. Jasper_in_Boston

      In a country with 340 million people, the top rate Fox personality gets 3 or 4 million viewers or 1% percent of the US.

      Kevin's gone over this in a recent post: long story short, in a given week, 70+ million Americans watch Fox News, but sure, when you take snapshots in time, the numbers don't look that huge (which is why classic "ratings" metrics are misleading with respect to Fox News and its influence on the national psyche). I do agree, though, that, now that the cat (how you can make billions selling right wing eyeballs to Proctor and Gamble via red meat and conspiracy theories) is out of the bag, someone else will take up the baton if Murdoch's heirs decide to go in a different direction.

  2. rick_jones

    During the first two recessions, in 1981 and 1989, the public response follows a similar path: people are angry as the economy gets worse, but then anger subsides as the economy improves.

    That makes sense. But look at what happens in 2000: Anger starts to rise before the recession begins

    Um, first off, the chart does not go back far enough to draw the first conclusion for the recession of 1981. Second, Dissatisfied(Anger proxy) was rising before the 1989 recession - by more than it rose before the post-2000 recession did.

    Also, the reduction in Dissatisfaction(Anger proxy) after the 1989 recession seems to have taken twice as long as after the 1981 recession. Without any help from Fox News.

    1. Jasper_in_Boston

      Second, Dissatisfied(Anger proxy) was rising before the 1989 recession - by more than it rose before the post-2000 recession did.

      Growth in the 80s peaked in 1984 at about 7% and thereafter began to gradually decline. Ditto for job growth. It doesn't seem inconsistent with Kevin's theory that an increase in dissatisfaction wouldn't track actual recessionary periods (which themselves are rather arbitrarily defined) with granular precision, but might begin creeping upwards as an expansion grows old (and weakens).

      Also, the reduction in Dissatisfaction(Anger proxy) after the 1989 recession seems to have taken twice as long as after the 1981 recession. Without any help from Fox News.

      We had a famously tepid recovery from the early 90s recession, which officially lifted in the spring of '91. It was widely declared to be a "jobless recovery" at the time. Clinton was famously campaigning in 1992—a full eighteen months after that recession ended—repeating the mantra "I feel your pain" (and let's not forget Carville's dictum: "It's the economy, stupid"). Again, that election was held about a year and half into the (very sluggish) recovery. Clearly it wouldn't violate the laws of physics for many American to be experiencing economic difficulties well after the Great and Good have declared that a recession has ended. We certainly saw this dynamic (even more so, much more so) in 2009-2014.

      Mind you, I think attributing every single fluctuation in public sentiment to the economy is overly reductive. But clearly the economy has historically exerted a very large influence on perceptions of national well-being, and Kevin's data here (which makes the case that around 2000 the dynamic began to change, due to the influence of right wing TV "news") to my eyes seems to support his thesis. YMMV.

      1. rick_jones

        I suspect, but haven’t dug up the numbers to support it, we could put up a similar chart for Internet access or cell phone ownership percentage.

        That, my liege is how we know the world to be banana shaped…

        1. Jasper_in_Boston

          Not sure I get your point. It's possible I'm interpreting Kevin wrong, but my understanding is he suggests: A) there's a relationship between economic turbulence and measurable dissatisfaction/anger but that B) the latter has more or less remained permanently at a high level since Rupert Murdoch perfected the art of driving huge profits via feeding this dynamic on TV.

          To me the data fit what seems reasonable.

  3. netsmith

    I think that the correlation(s) for a rise in anger/dissatisfaction (early 90s and early 2000s) are with our entering into wars. The first one (in the 90s) was transitory and the second one wasn't -- it rose to the plateau that we've stayed on. Of course, the rise of Fox corresponds to the second period, and the rise (and continuing haunting) of the Donald more recently could account for the plateau.

  4. MindGame

    9/11 broke something in the US. It hasn't been the same since, and yes, Fox News and talk radio piled on to amplify the madness since then.

    1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

      9/11/2001 made plain that economic anxiety wasn't just a matter of Black against whites: the problem could come in any shade. Even as the 19 hijackers were Saudi or other Arab, Muslamiacs could be anyone. Just look at the chart of countries with greatest number of Muslins: Indonesia is number one, & not a turnbanheaded guy among them. Meanwhile, other Muslins could just as easily be Vietnamese as Tanzanian as Bosnian.

      After that clear day in September, whites had to be ever vigilant for fucking everyone. & that perpetual vigilance could easily make any white be a little on edge & angry.

        1. KawSunflower

          Thanks you! Earlier, I had decided to make a comment about Fox & guns being the new lead but then decided against it. Now I do want to say it as Fox & the NRA drumbeat about the Democrats "coming to get your guns" certainly inspired a reaction to any attempts to control gun access. It's as dangerous to the believers as lead was to everyone exposed, regardless of political beginnings. There are other insidious factors in radio & cable TV, but the growth of gun sales & both open-carry & concealed-carry legislation have made matters worse.

            1. KawSunflower

              That's OK - & why I thought better of commenting originally. But living in a place where gun fanatics & "constitutional" sheriffs are common, the former intimidating even legislators in their homes, voters near polling places, & the latter promising to make "liberal" prosecutors step aside if they & the new AG don't like the decisions of those legally elected to those positions tends to make someone originally from a very different culture afraid for all of us. No state legislator should defy gun prohibitions by hiding a weapon in a purse! At least Congress now has metal detectors.

    2. NealB

      9/11 but first the fact that democracy here was abrogated with the Supreme Court's decision in 2000 to steal the election and elect George W. Bush president, regardless of the votes. Fox just went along for the ride after that.

      1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

        In 2024, Americans have a choice who is younger than Biden, Bernie, Trump, & Hillary -- algore. He's tanned, rested, & ready.

    3. Jasper_in_Boston

      I tend to think the real inflection points was Bush vs. Gore, which came eight months before the Bin Laden attack. The right stole the presidency, and we haven't been the same since.

        1. NealB

          Do we have a choice? Gore was such a good man. He probably would not be any worse than Biden is now as president. But it wasn't up to Gore. Was it? Blame the Supreme Court for the demise of democracy. Not Gore.

          1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

            Mexican & Native American vote cagers William Rehnquist & Sandra Day O'Connor obtained their final antidemocratic form that day in December 2000 when they used the 14th amendment to sanctify white supremacy.

        2. Jasper_in_Boston

          Gore's team may have made strategic errors in contesting that election—errors that ultimately paved the path to the Republican Supreme Court. But once the court indeed ruled in favor of Bush, there was nothing to but concede ("quit" as you put it). We were widely known as a nation of laws back in 2000, and Gore had nowhere else to go save calls to violence and insurrection.

          1. RZM

            I think this is exactly right. One can pick apart the Gore team's strategy but once the Supreme Court arrived at their peculiar position there was no way for Gore to move forward without making calls to some sort of insurrection which Al Gore would never have approved of. Bob Somerby seems to have gone off the rails but one thing I think he got right was that Gore is a fundamentally decent person who was treated abysmally by a stupid and childish media.

            1. Jasper_in_Boston

              Al Gore's concession was one of the finest political speeches by an American in my lifetime. Moving, yes, and extremely eloquent.

        3. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

          So, you would have been ok with algore leading a stop the steal assault on the Capitol? Would KKKlay Travis have been his QANON Shaman (2001)?

      1. HokieAnnie

        Yes but - I feel the impeachment of President Clinton was also an important inflection point. Remember back in the 1990s a ton of cranks felt that Clinton wasn't really legitimate because he won with a minority of the voters - folks didn't feel that way about Carter, they didn't like him but nobody argued about whether or not he won.

        1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

          James Earl Carter, Jr., also never had a death squad to exterminate his enemies, as Bill Climpton did.

        2. RZM

          I think Kevin is trying too hard here . In fact, I think we're all trying too hard to make sense of this . One chart is simply not enough to go on. That said, I think the Clinton years with the whole Ken Starr circus followed by the impeachment contributed to the American public's perception that the socio-political culture was a mess. Newt Gingrich and his nihilistic pursuit of power presaged this. I would add it has been my perception (and only that) that 9/11 and our response to it let loose a lot of bad stuff in our culture.

  5. tdbach

    As much as I loath Fox News, and blame them in no small measure for the absolute vitriol with which most people in the rural and non-urban heartland areas hold Democrats, making functioning government (i.e. compromise) impossible, I don't see the correlation, let alone causation in Kevin's chart. That said, "dissatisfied" might have morphed to "angry about" as a pollster's choice of terms thanks to Fox.

    1. NealB

      Don't actually watch Fox news any more. Likewise don't read the "local" newspaper. I regret that I don't trust them anymore. My dad was a newsman back in the 50s and 60s. So I like to think they can still be entertaining while at the same time being honest. Play-by-play. Angry is very relative. The outraged woman ringside at the fight might be exuberant and raw. Charts don't capture that. Whether she's for or against. It's just raw man-on-man action and women enthralled. Tedious and boring for the chart-makers. It can't be quantified.

      Still. There it is.

    2. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

      Ross Perot ran as a proto-Bernie, proto-Trump populist in 1992, four years before Roger Ailes ejaculated FOXnews into existence, so the Hellbilly Revanchism was already primed to erupt.

      The standoff at Randy Weaver's crib was also in 1992, even before the general election, so the militia movement wasn't an outgrowth of Bill "Tiller is a babykiller" O'Reilly invective or G. Gordon "Headshots! Headshots!" Liddy's*.

      *That said, pretty sure GGL said that on Hardball with Chris Matthews on MSNBC. (Chris, of course, was hired originally to CNBC by Roger Ailes. I am still surprised he didn't follow Roger to FOXnews in 1996.)

      1. jte21

        Rush Limbaugh's show was syndicated nationally in the late 80s/early 90's iirc, followed by a million imitators with spittle-flecked microphones across the AM spectrum -- that's where a lot of this shit started.

        1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

          & El Rushbo was a true failson: the FM rock radio drivetime host who was son of an esteemed local jurist in Cape Girardeau, & whose brother was the good son who followed dad into law.

          Limbaugh wanted to prove he was more than the guy who took you into commercial after playing Thin Lizzy, or did livereads for the local tittybar. He wanted to be someone serious. So, he would talk politics on air... But he did so in an fm rock idiom.

          Same thing is manifesting with unpopular standup Joe Rogan moving into quasiserious podcasting.

  6. cmayo

    It's still the economy. It's not Fox News. All Fox is doing is redirecting some people's anger towards perceived left-wing devils, it's not really causing any anger. Fox's audience comes to them already angry, even if they don't express it at anything in particular.

    Deep down, or even not that deep down, everybody knows that this country is completely fucked up. It's just not as fucked up as most other countries, so I guess there's that, but it's still been captured by a highly corrosive oligarchy.

    Jobs mostly suck. Things cost more, and/or are built more poorly. And there's just this constant overtone of the Haves endlessly holding down the Have-Nots. Everybody knows the economy is rigged, and it is really over the last few decades where the facade of fairness has crumbled.

    That's why people are so angry. Or at least, one gigantic reason why.

    1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

      No, it's always been economic anxiety.

      I watched a Simon Whistler Biographics video on James Earl Ray last nite, & his lifestory is basically the Revenge of the Sith to J.D. ANTIVAXXX's Empire Strikes Back.

  7. Pingback: Fox News makes money from poisoning society | Later On

  8. Matt Ball

    I was in two stores today -- grocery and hardware. Big signs saying masks are required for everyone. Yet 33% or so absolutely not. Made me angry.

  9. R.Porrofatto

    I see that folks are already dismissing any correlation. But I think there's something here. The rise of Fox directly coincided with the rise of Limbaugh and the ubiquity of hate radio. All that nonstop mendacity, complaint, and sheer bitching out loud is probably not the sole cause, but it clearly has had a significant influence on people's attitudes. Add in the unmitigated toxicity of a lying, divisive POS like Donald Trump -- notice the correlation between the elevation of Trump and the increase in Fox viewership -- and is it any wonder that anger curve ain't going down any time soon?

    1. Salamander

      There's big money in anger. Stoke up your little slice of the electorate on hate and thoughts of vengeance (preferably at the ballot box, but why limit it anymore?), and they'll not only turn out, they'll give you all their money.

      If you're a media outlet, rage gets views! Clicks! That attracts sponsors, so it's money again.

      Certain segments of the Political-Industrial Complex have figured it out, with brave pioneers like that dead limburger character and Rupert Murdoch blazing the way. Even a few lefty outlets, like MSNBC, have gotten the word.

      The Democratic Party? No way. Even though their voters are clearly outraged by the GQP, Dems seem unwilling to use that emotion on their own behalf.

      1. Justin

        Way back in probably 1990 or 1991 I had my first awareness that lots of people hated me. I learned that from Rush Limbaugh who my father listened to. I listened too but then when I realized what a freak he was I quit.

        I’ll never forget that dawning realization that republicans weren’t just people with different ideas, but that they actually posed a threat. The Clinton presidency was terrible. He appeased republicans and then, of course, he was himself a pig.

        So… I hate / despise all republicans now. After then harassed Obama and elected trump there was no reconciliation possible. So that’s that. Republicans are evil. Democrats are useless. Burn it down.

    2. Heysus

      I have to agree. Way back in the early 90's or late 80's my psychologist friend, also a Dem, told me to listen to Rush on the radio. I couldn't bring myself to do it. I loath and abhor redneck rage. This likely was a faux precursor.

  10. Wonder Dog

    Mr. Drum, apparently some or a lot of folks are not going to accept this. Americans seem to have a built-in disinclination for accepting the obvious, I think at least partly because unconsciously we don't believe we're susceptible, that there have to be deeper, more meaningful reasons, or anything except that we, humans, are in fundamental ways nowhere near as complicated as "enlightened" folks would like to believe. Propaganda works for precisely this reason, and Fox 'News' propaganda has effects far beyond its immediate audience. It's not irrelevant to its effects how Fox emerged, or the wider milieu from which it spawned, or the web in which it exists; but none of this takes away from how thoroughly Fox, out of all, has deformed our political and media culture with unparalleled success. And as far as I'm concerned, to argue at this point against this, as opposed to looking more closely at exactly how and to what effect it does its work, is providing cover and support for the single most malevolent force working against our liberal democracy.

  11. skeptonomist

    In the first place what the graph shows except for the last 13 years is dissatisfaction, not anger - why does Kevin call it anger? Anger might be correlated with dissatisfaction or it might not over the preceding time. For all we know anger could have been at 70% since 1776. Inferring a correlation would make more sense if the two curves had been similar over a number of ups and downs.

    But taking the poll at face value - which is not always wise - we would probably need to see a breakdown by party leaning, at least, to figure out what has been going on with dissatisfaction. Of course we would also really need to know why people are dissatisfied - this might come from other polls. This is not something that you can guess at - there are too many things for people to be dissatisfied with.

    One thing we do know is that Kevin is going to blame Fox News for any bad trends.

  12. Special Newb

    Republican bullshit impeachment snd fake investigations.
    A stolen election.
    Biggest national security failure since 1941
    A stupid and hasty conducted war
    A fake cause for a second war also stupidly done, and used to cast opponents as weak traitors
    A suspicious election of the guy who did the previous
    An attack on Social Security
    An apocalyptic economic collapse for which the minimum was done
    Racist republican obstruction
    The theft of a SCOTUS seat
    2016 -> do I need to explain?

    Lots of stuff to be enraged about.

  13. D_Ohrk_E1

    Elected in 1978, Gingrich arrived in Washington eager to shake things up. He argued that if the GOP ever wanted to defeat the Democrats, they needed to embrace a smashmouth style of partisanship which revolved around character assassination, violating norms and tearing down governing institutions. -- https://bityl.co/AVzg

    "The Gingrich approach of extreme right ideas, combined with a scorched-earth personal level of politics in attacking opponents—later seen in Clinton’s investigations and impeachment—has also had a major impact on American politics" he says. "It helped bring a much more 'win at all costs' mentality, and a divisiveness that persists today." -- https://bityl.co/AVzj

    Gingrich was at the forefront of starting this, but he's not exactly the mastermind controlling it. There are societies of conservatives who, in their groupthink, have embraced Gingrich's revolution and used his framework to continue the attack which has led to where we are in 2022.

    What we have is a multi-pronged coordinated attack for the sake of power, with zero regard to the institutions that are breaking down and the crumbling of American Democracy. Fox News is only one of the prongs, specifically the Disinfo prong. The Federalist Society is another prong, meant to foster and expand the influence and power of the far-right and change what is "legal" and "illegal", aka the "Legal" prong. The embrace of Evangelicals is another prong, aka the "Righteousness" prong.

    As I recently pointed out, it takes a special ego to assume that what gets built from the ashes is more to your liking than what you burned down.

    1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

      This makes me ask why 1978 Newt Gingrich was so angry. He was a history doctorate with a solid academic job who had just dropped his cancer stricken wife like a bad habit. What was setting him off? Tenure denial?

        1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

          True, but 26 years later college professor Dave Brat dumped ( ( ( Eric Cantor ) ) ) in the Virginia-7 GQP House primary, & it's easy to understand why: Brat was a glibertarian goldbug angry with his party's rootless rather than ruthless attempt at toppling an out of control Obummer despotism. We knew why Brat was angry.

          Newt, on the other hand, was never a Lew Rockwell evangelist nor particularly animated by Rothschild fantasies, so what was getting him turnt?

          1. Jasper_in_Boston

            This makes me ask why 1978 Newt Gingrich was so angry.

            What makes you think he was angry? In my view the greater probability is the Newt wasn't angry but smart, or shrewd. In other words, he was correct in his assessment of US politics, and the Republican Party's successes began to multiply as it increasingly followed his methods.

            Newt, in short, had a better handle on how to win power than other Republicans of his day. He projected anger or nastiness or ruthlessness because these things work.

            1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

              But his policy prescriptions in the Contract on America were exactly as mean as you would expect of an anger person.

      1. jte21

        I may be misremembering but I recall reading some years back that he resigned his position before even coming up for tenure because he didn't feel like publishing (academic work, in any case) and saw politics as a more lucrative career path.

    2. Justin

      Gingrich is a good Catholic now. I wonder what he says to the priest during confession. I’m certainly not aware of any repentance.

  14. johngreenberg

    Looking at the Gallup line, what leaps out at me is that dissatisfaction rises during Republican presidencies and falls during Democratic ones.

    1. jte21

      Republicans always tank the economy. I can't believe people still identify with a party that has run this country into the ground no fewer than three times over the past century.

  15. Justin

    This would make me mad… if I lived in NYC or ga e a crap about NYC.

    Many subway riders now complain of regular encounters with people who seem unhinged and threatening and have pleaded for help from elected officials.

    While the killing is likely to spur calls for a heavier police presence in the subway, advocates for the homeless and mentally ill cautioned against using it as an excuse to harass some of the most vulnerable people in the city.

    “It’s a horrible tragedy, but that shouldn’t be a pretext for intensifying policing, which is where this will likely go,” said Craig Hughes, a supervising social worker at the Urban Justice Center. He added, “The presence of more police doesn’t necessarily mean more safety, and for many homeless people, it means less safety.”

    These so called advocates are really just apologists. They are despicable. I don’t like them at all.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/15/nyregion/woman-pushed-on-train-death.html

    The Post has the picture of the day. The crazy flipping murderer tells you what he thinks…

    https://nypost.com/2022/01/15/woman-pushed-to-her-death-at-times-square-subway-station/

    A completely useless animal. Put it down.

    1. Jasper_in_Boston

      In countries that actually care about world-class transport infrastructure, plexiglass gates prevent what happened in NYC. But one of our two parties (with help from an Australian deep implant) has convinced half the country that spending money on public goods is a deeply evil Communist plot. And so here we are.

    2. JonF311

      Re: Many subway riders now complain of regular encounters with people who seem unhinged and threatening

      They're just noticing mentally ill and/or addicted homeless people? Where have they been since, oh 1980ish?

  16. Joseph Harbin

    https://www.indy100.com/viral/bizarre-correlations-that-will-leave-you-wishing-nicolas-cage-would-retire-7240456

    Charts at that link show eating butter leads to divorce (99% correlation) and Nic Cage films lead to drowning (67%). Just a reminder about what correlation does not imply.

    Three points:

    1. The economies of the first two decades (1980s & '90s) and the second two decades (2000s & '10s) were very different. The non-recessionary years of the first period were boom times and felt far more boisterous than those years of the second period, which were sluggish recoveries after steeper downturns. Also, the divide between the haves and have-nots was not as great in the earlier period. Now the "good" economy is shared by a smaller segment of the population.

    2. That doesn't let Fox off the hook. It is a blight on the nation and one of the great threats to a democratic, pluralistic future. Media before Fox was hardly perfect, but if we had the old pre-Fox press covering today's politics, Republicans would be in deep shit. It's mind-boggling what they get away with these days. Fox has radicalized a big slice of the electorate beyond anything anyone could have imagined.

    3. But Fox viewers were never likely to support Democrats anyway. I think much of the damage that Fox has done is through its effect on other media. Fox to a large degree now sets the agenda, especially when it comes to politics. Mainstream media still does a fair amount of really good journalism, but on politics they truly suck. NYT, WaPo, NPR, TV networks, etc., all hold Democrats to very high standards. Republicans can do virtually anything -- engage in sex with teens, collaborate with our adversaries, eliminate voting rights, defend militias and insurrectionists -- and the press reacts largely with a shrug. Often the most heinous GOP misdeeds are framed as a problem for Dems. What is Joe Biden or the Dem Congress going to do about it? We might not be able to get rid of Fox, but if we could just get the MSM to do fair coverage of politics, without double standards, and only a bias toward age-old American ideals of decency, truth, and democracy, we'd be a better and happier country.

    1. Jasper_in_Boston

      Charts at that link show eating butter leads to divorce (99% correlation) and Nic Cage films lead to drowning (67%). Just a reminder about what correlation does not imply.

      Surely you're not suggesting there's no plausible causative mechanism whereby economic problems cause public dissatisfaction or anger, are you? Ditto for right wing TV news...

  17. horaceworblehat

    Back when I was a kid this smart man from my neck of the woods explained the political situation in a single sentence: "It's the economy, stupid." It's always the economy. It always will be the economy because bad decisions or indecisions by our government affect us economically. We're dissatisfied because despite all the charts out there showing the economy is great, the reality is quite different.

    I am nearly 40, and right around when that quote was stated there was a new TV show that had only been on television for a couple of seasons by that point on Fox called The Simpsons that quite literally made fun of how difficult it was for a man working a factory job to make ends meet from the economy that came from the "Reagan revolution". Homer Simpson is portrayed as a loser. That loser lives a life that is unattainable to most of my generation and younger.

    That is why we are angry. This country has never been more wealthy than it is right now, yet many of us will never attain any of it. My generation has been called lazy. We've been called stupid despite having achieved higher education at a higher rate than any generation prior at great financial cost to ourselves. Every week there's an article showing something my generation has "ruined". "No one buys Rolexes anymore. Why oh why?"

    There is one thing my generation is truly ruining: the birth rate. We're not having children. I'm certainly not, and I'm almost too old to have a child and be for them when they reach adulthood. Why would I have a child today? I can't afford one, much less provide for them after filing bankruptcy after I receive the bill from the child's birth. Let's not go into exactly what hellscape we will be living in 20 years when the climate is too messed up for human habitation in not-so-insignificant portions of this country.

    Hell, I don't have health insurance myself. I make too much to qualify for Medicaid expansion and make too little to afford anything but scam policies on the marketplace. Today, I live in a world where I can expect to get ill or be incapacitated by a deadly virus but yet can't expect anything in the way of healthcare if I do get sick. But, I have to keep going to work in person exposed to the virus on a daily basis to keep the economy going by god.

    But dear me why do people have a reason to be angry or dissatisfied?

    1. SecondLook

      But dear me why do people have a reason to be angry or dissatisfied?

      Cemeteries filled with young dead men (and now women) from Korea to Afghanistan, for starters.
      A modern society that about a third of us can't really handle - and I am speaking of the basics: terrible educations, or low intelligence,or cultural traditions that simply are as useful as buggy whips in dealing with the world - and those are culturally genetic.

    2. JonF311

      My generation (the one before yours) was called a bunch of slackers-- nothing new there.

      Re: I'm almost too old to have a child and be for them when they reach adulthood.

      My father was almost 44 when I was born. My mother was 38.

  18. SecondLook

    With datasets like these, you really need to do averaging over time.
    What is the 1 year, 2 years, 5 years, 10 years, 15 year average of "anger". Even better would be a lognormal scale showing how that has varied since say, the rise of the American Empire, circa 1946?
    (My personal take on accounting for our age of discontent).

  19. golack

    Union membership.
    Dropped a lot from 1980 (and earlier?) to 18% of employees by 1985...and kept dropping...ca. 10% by 2019--though there may be a little rebound in 2020.
    https://usafacts.org/articles/labor-union-membership/
    Unions paved the way for the middle class in the US, allowed for on the job training/apprenticeships and for enough money and benefits to raise a family. Maybe even pass on an inheritance.
    Today, for many Americans, good jobs require college degrees and lots of debt. And even then, the jobs may not be that good. And they don't see their kids getting ahead in life. So there is a lot of generalized resentment. And the Republican party is very good at nurturing resentment.

    1. JonF311

      Re: Unions paved the way for the middle class in the US

      No. Unions allowed working class people to live like the middle class. There was always a middle class (and there still is one), it just didn't (and again mostly doesn't now) include blue collar workers.

    1. golack

      Very true. The only thing worse than having a Black president was having one who did a good job. They'll never forgive Obama for that. That's why he or Michelle need to be appointed to the Supreme Court.

  20. ruralhobo

    "But look at what happens in 2000: Anger starts to rise before the recession begins."

    Not only in 2000. Before ALL the recessions on the chart. In fact, if one were to look only at this chart, the conclusion might be that anger/dissatisfaction CAUSES the recession since it was rising first.

    Also, with the exception (this time) of 2000, anger/dissatisfaction DECLINES during each recession. Apparently it's not the economy, stupid.

  21. Heysus

    Ah yes, the trumpinista's mouth piece has been the harbinger of decay in this country and continues to do so. t-Rump jumped on its wagon. Match made in heaven.

  22. spatrick

    You will notice anger begins to rise in 2001, which happens to be the year of 9-11. Do not discount what that day has meant to this country since. You all to need Spencer Ackerman's book about it.

    "Fox, WTF?" it is "why are so many willing to buy what Fox is selling?"

    Agreed and its not just Fox. If it's true that Rush Limbaugh had once told a relative "I need half the country to hate me in order to make millions," then you have the perverse reasoning as to Fox and Right entertainment complex does what it does. Polarization = profit. But again, would it do so if there was no audience for it? Go back to 2000 in that election year only half a million people voted for Pat Buchanan's vision of America (I admittedly was one of them). By 2020, 74 million people for vote Trump's. Why? Well, when voters feel like they've lost or are losing something, then it is much easier for them to vote for (as one politician put it) "the craziest SOB in the field" because he's willing to crazy in comparison to the societal norms around them to fight back even though they probably know it's a losing battle. And that doesn't just go for politics but media as well.

  23. Pingback: Explaining Our Days of Rage | KingMidget's Ramblings

  24. spatrick

    ". I think much of the damage that Fox has done is through its effect on other media. Fox to a large degree now sets the agenda, especially when it comes to politics. Mainstream media still does a fair amount of really good journalism, but on politics they truly suck. NYT, WaPo, NPR, TV networks, etc., all hold Democrats to very high standards. Republicans can do virtually anything -- engage in sex with teens, collaborate with our adversaries, eliminate voting rights, defend militias and insurrectionists -- and the press reacts largely with a shrug. Often the most heinous GOP misdeeds are framed as a problem for Dems. "

    Absolutely correct.

  25. Justin

    This will stoke some more anger. Thanks for selling out to China! I wonder if part of the motivation for these lockdowns is to demonstrate to the world that they have us all but the balls.

    WASHINGTON — Companies are bracing for another round of potentially debilitating supply chain disruptions as China, home to about a third of global manufacturing, imposes sweeping lockdowns in an attempt to keep the Omicron variant at bay.

    The measures have already confined tens of millions of people to their homes in several Chinese cities and contributed to a suspension of connecting flights through Hong Kong from much of the world for the next month. At least 20 million people, or about 1.5 percent of China’s population, are in lockdown, mostly in the city of Xi’an in western China and in Henan Province in north-central China.

    The country’s zero-tolerance policy has manufacturers — already on edge from spending the past two years dealing with crippling supply chain woes — worried about another round of shutdowns at Chinese factories and ports.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/16/business/economy/china-supply-chain-covid-lockdowns.html

    Good for them. The dictators are not so concerned with profits anymore. They have all the money they need now.

    The Bush’s and Clinton’s sold American down the river. They should be ashamed of themselves.

  26. Vog46

    I keep going back and forth on this one
    We seem to be a nation caught in the concept of outrageous-ness

    The more outrageous "it" is the better Americans like it - or hate it.
    It goes for our news sources too.
    You would think AFTER the Ailes story that not a single women in the U.S. would watch FOX, but they still do
    We value "extremes" and extremism in EVERYTHING as we disparage decorum.

    It's win or lose, my way (whichever side you're on) or the highway

    We have met the enemy and it is us

  27. Teacher

    A lot of good points here. I think we all sort of agree this is a multifaceted problem, beyond just Fox News.

    I think the broader problem, that runs across the whole globe (not just America) is technology. Not technology itself, but who can use/manipulate it to grow wealth.

    Technology, derived from the amazing human brain, has helped humans thrive and rule the planet better than any other mammal. Hear me out: we all want technological innovations, we want newer things, better etc. It is what everyone values, whether you state it out loud or not.

    When society values something, the price increases. We pay/trade more for it. People who can provide the technology then, as a result, get more money/easier life/more satisfaction. Here is where societal dissatisfaction starts. There is a broad spectrum of human intelligence. Unfortunately, or fortunately, are technology has progressed so far that only certain humans, can manipulate it, use it, build it or create it. The people that can do that are paid more money.

    Technology has created extreme class divide. More and more people cannot get paid more, because they cannot do or use or manipulate the thing that most people want more of. So, what do they do - they get dissatisfied, and for some, angry. Simply, they have it worse off.

    The higher-ed college system has gotten messed up in this (hey if you just get a degree, you will get paid more). Fox News is just a by-product of this. More dissatisfied people, feed them what they want.

    I am a millennial - my friends and acquaintances who can use or create technology get paid more (data analysts, computer programmers, etc.). My friends/acquaintances who cannot, get paid less.

    The technology has advanced so far that there are less and less people that can "add" to the technology. This is why this is happening across all countries.

    Sure we do some things wrong in America - health care, Fox News, obesity, consumerism extremes, etc.

    The core issue is that Technology growth has frozen out people/families that used to make more money.

    Where do we end up - no idea. How do you solve this - haha - no idea.

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