Why the Nation Is So Pessimistic and Why We Shouldn’t Be
– By Howard Sierer –
“The progressive left always blames America first.” So said the ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick in a speech at the Republican national convention in 1984. Her words resonate even more clearly today.
The progressive left’s pessimistic views of our country have an outsized and undeserved impact on the American mood as a result of vigorous support by the leftist news media. That pessimism is amplified as conservative media respond to the left’s extreme policy proposals. Current examples: progressive media’s continuing support of gender change surgery for teens and for allowing biological men to compete in women’s athletics; in the not-too-distant past, defunding the police.
A recent Gallup poll illustrates this dichotomy. Some 85% of Americans said they were satisfied with their personal lives, about the same percentage who’ve felt that way over the last 40 years. Yet when asked about the direction of the country, only 17% said they were satisfied, down from 69 percent in 2000.
Some of this effect can be explained by the media’s natural tendency to want to attract eyeballs: bad news sells, good news usually gets a ho-hum response. But the underlying cause of negativism is the liberal media’s overwhelming tendency to “blame America first.”
No less than the admittedly-liberal New York Times ran a column that said in part, “News media bias is real. It reduces the quality of journalism, and it fosters distrust among readers and viewers.” And I would add that media pessimism about the country distorts citizens’ feelings about the state of our society.
So, here’s a modest and non-political attempt to show why life in the U.S. has improved dramatically during the lifetime of most readers, changes that appear incrementally and soon become “the way things always were.”
Let me start by linking to last week’s column that explained how the American Dream is alive and well. Real inflation-adjusted incomes have risen dramatically in our lifetimes and our dynamic society has fostered economic mobility for the vast majority of Americans.
According to the book Superabundance, from 1980 to 2018, the average amount of time a person had to work to afford a basket of commodities that make up a typical middle-class lifestyle – energy, food, raw materials – fell by 72 percent.
A recent article in the Atlantic magazine gave numerous examples of other dramatic improvements in our lives that we easily take for granted and why America is on the right track.
In 1960, the average American lived 70.1 years; by 2015, that figure was 78.9 years. From 1990 to 2017, lung cancer death rates among men fell by 51%. In roughly the same time period, breast cancer death rates among women fell by 40% and prostate cancer death rates fell by 52%.
A Federal Reserve study’s authors reported findings that “strongly suggest that the pandemic surge in business applications was followed by true employer business creation with significant labor market implications.” Among those, the number of black small-business owners was 28 percent higher in the third quarter of 2021 than it was pre-pandemic.
In 2000, about a third of Hispanic students dropped out of high school. Only 9.4% did in 2021. Hispanic college-enrollment rates surpassed white enrollment rates in 2012. The incomes of Hispanics rose faster than those of any other major group in America from 2014 to 2019.
Deindustrialization in the latter part of the 20th century was painful, especially in the Midwest, as many manufacturing activities were shifted overseas. Thankfully, the Brookings Institution reported that by 2018, 62% of the most-affected counties successfully transitioned to new industries. This manufacturing revival has resulted in a surge in factory employment, illustrating what economist Joseph Schumpeter called “creative destruction.”
America leads the world in attracting foreign direct investment. Foreign companies have made 56 mega-investments of more than $1 billion each – investments in auto, semiconductors, clean energy, and other industries. Only two of those investments are in California; six are in Illinois, five are in Iowa.
We are home to the world’s most important capital markets and they are growing. In 2011, for example, $45.4 billion of venture capital was invested in young, innovative American firms; in 2021, $332.8 billion was invested in such firms.
Good news on the environment may come as a surprise. From 2008 to 2017, the U.S. economy expanded by 15 percent, but total energy consumption went down. Carbon emissions per capita have plummeted this century; we are now back down to levels from the 1910s.
We have witnessed two stunning technological advances in the last two years, innovations that are likely to have major impacts in coming decades: mRNA vaccines and impressive gains in artificial intelligence.
I’m optimistic about my own future and I’m among the 17% who are optimistic about the nation’s future. We’ve always had problems, we always will and yes, the media needs to point them out. Nonetheless, I’m sure we’ll be looking back 10 or 20 years from now and marveling at the progress that has been made since the year 2023.
Viewpoints and perspectives expressed throughout The Independent are those of the individual contributors. They do not necessarily reflect those held by the staff of The Independent or our advertising sponsors. Your comments, rebuttals, and contributions are welcome in accordance with our Terms of Service. Please be respectful and abide by our Community Rules. If you have privacy concerns you can view our Privacy Policy here. Thank you!
Click here to submit an article, guest opinion piece, or a Letter to the Editor
