Latest Gallup: Dissatisfaction with U.S. Government Soars. “15 Years of Unmitigated Rotten Government”
By Eric Zuesse
Global Research
March 13, 2015
The latest Gallup poll shows that even as Americans are more satisfied with the American economy, they are more dissatisfied with the government; and that this government-dissatisfaction is so high that for the first time while Gallup has been following this matter, the ratio of dissatisfaction with government is swamping the ratio of dissatisfaction with both of the other two matters that Americans are dissatisfied with: the economy, and unemployment.
In this Gallup report, dated March 12th, dissatisfaction with government has slightly risen, while dissatisfaction regarding all other matters has either gone down, or else remained constant.
When asked “What do you think is the most important problem facing this country today?” 18% now say “government.” 11% say “economy.” 10% say “unemployment.” And 7% say “immigration/illegal aliens.” “Healthcare” was also 7%. All other issues were lower than 7%.
What has actually soared is the ratio of dissatisfaction with the government, divided by the highest other issue of dissatisfaction. This ratio has recently skyrocketed.
Dissatisfaction with government has previously been as high as 20% in April 2014, but at those times dissatisfaction with other issues was higher than it is now (for example, dissatisfaction with the economy was 16% in April 2014, whereas now it’s only 11% — the economy has improved).
For some reason(s), Americans are especially frustrated with their government right now. Perhaps Americans, who previously preferred divided control of government (a ‘Democratic’ President and a solid-Republican Congress — both houses being now Republican), and who now have what the polls had previously shown that Americans wanted on that (divided government), are starting to change their minds about divided government: they don’t like it, after all.
Here is additional support for this hypothesis: This particular poll happens to have been taken during March 5th throuth 8th. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the U.S. Congress occurred right before that, on March 3rd, and it represented a historically unprecedented affront and insult to a sitting U.S. President, both from the opposition political party (in this case, by Republicans), and also from a supposedly-allied foreign government (Israel).
The Rest…HERE
