No Love for the Government
Despite a promise of hope and change, Americans are increasingly disillusioned with the performance of the federal government, and they’re becoming increasingly pessimistic about the direction our country is currently headed in.
For the majority of Obama’s first year in office, his approval ratings had hovered above the 60% mark – leaving a much smaller 40% to complain about his actions or lack of actions (as the case may be.) In the last few weeks, however, this number has quickly slid down to a much closer 50-50%. For every Obama fan, there is someone who thinks he should be doing a whole lot less or a whole lot more.
And this highlights another problem the government currently faces in its attempt to legislate from the center – the voices of complaint are splintered, and thusly do not point to a more popular course of action.
Congressional job approval is now at about 27% nationwide, so just about one in four Americans is happy with the work being done by our highest paid representatives. Unfortunately, this offers little danger to incumbents, because as unpopular as the entire body is, people tend to appreciate their own corrupt bastard.
So all in all, about a third of the nation is happy with the direction we’re headed in, and there’s not a whole lot of evidence that this direction is likely to change any time soon. In fact, the momentum of the machine is intent on self-preservation and resistance from true change – but that won’t stop us from hoping for some kind of real future change.