The Pressure Is Building

Here are the results of a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll:

Two-thirds of Americans feel they have little or no influence over the actions of the federal government. Forty-five percent say the country’s greatness is ebbing. As many see voter fraud as commonplace. A third aren’t confident that votes in the presidential election will be counted fairly. And a third say people like them are treated unfairly in this country.

The results of this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, mark the extent to which underlying views of the state of the nation interact with political preferences. In some ways, a pessimists vs. optimists election.

You may disagree with the people who do not see things optimistically. You may think that they’re wrong or misinformed. Think of them as deplorable at your peril.

When pressure builds within an enclosure one of two things can happen. The pressure can be released gradually and safely or you can let the pressure build until the whole blamed thing explodes.

There are lots of reasons that the pressure is building, some benign, some less so. We are in the longest war in U. S. history, it shows few signs of ending, and we appear to have accomplished little by it. A generation of Americans has grown up with bleaker economic prospects than their parents had. There have been dramatic shifts in mores and culture, the most pronounced since the social upheaval of the 1960s. A majority of Americans feel like strangers in their own country.