If you’re feeling anger the political system being rigged to benefit those at the top, a new poll reveals you’re far from alone.
Released Sunday, the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows that 70 percent of Americans said they felt “angry because our political system seems to only be working for the insiders with money and power.” That figure, based on polling conducted Aug. 10-14, is barely different from the 69 percent who said they felt that way in an October 2015 poll.
“Four years ago, we uncovered a deep and boiling anger across the country engulfing our political system,” said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates, which conducted the survey with the Republican firm Public Opinion Strategies. “Four years later, with a very different political leader in place,” said Horwitt, “that anger remains at the same level.”
Other questions asked by the pollsters reveal more pessimism.
Sixty-seven percent said they do not feel confident that our children’s generation will face a better life than ours; that’s up from the 61 percent who felt that way in 2017.
Respondents’ views of race relations were grim as well.
The poll finds that 60 percent believe race relations are bad in the nation. That view was expressed by 56 percent of whites, 81 percent of African Americans, and 61 percent of Hispanics.
Since President Donald Trump took office, 56 percent said race relations have gotten worse. While 47 percent of whites felt that way, 86 percent of African Americans and 74 percent of Hispanics said race relations worsened under Trump.
Views on the issue were markedly different under Trump’s predecessor.
In November 2011, 19 percent said race relations had gotten worse under then-President Barack Obama; 13 percent expressed that view in January 2009.
Some of the new poll’s other findings indicate less gloom.
It also shows that 57percent of Americans expressed satisfaction with the state of the U.S. economy. Sixty-nine percent also expressed satisfaction with their person financial situation. Despite those views, more than half—56 percent—said they felt “anxious and uncertain because the economy still feels rocky and unpredictable,” causing fears about being able to pay bills.
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