Welcome to dystopia
by digby
Last night Trump told his audience in Everett Washington (where the polls show him running 17 points behind) the "country is going to hell, folks."
Actually, not so much, at least most people don't think so:
How Americans feel about the state of their lives have improved markedly in the eight years since Barack Obama was elected president, according to Gallup data released Tuesday.
In 2008, fewer than half of Americans said their life was good enough to be considered "thriving," according to Gallup. But that's changed: "The 55.4% who are thriving so far in 2016 is on pace to be the highest recorded in the nine years Gallup and Healthways have tracked it," according to the report.
Not only that, members of each ethnic or racial group in Gallup's study feel better about their lives.
"The percentages of U.S. whites, blacks, Hispanics and Asians who are thriving have all increased during the Obama era," Gallup notes. The percentage of blacks thriving has risen by about 6 points, as has the percentage of whites and Hispanics. Asian thriving has risen by about 10 points since 2008.
The biggest threat to our future well-being right now is a guy named Donald Trump.
There are always going to be people who are suffering and there are way too many of them right now. But this idea that we are living in uniquely horrific times just doesn't comport with reality. People ought to read a little bit about the Great Depression or slavery or one of the epic world wars that went on for years in the last century. We have problems and the world is undergoing change that's presenting a big challenge for the future. But we've been through worse even as recently as 9/11 or 2008. We're doing better and most people know it.
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