No satisfaction

Would it surprise you to learn that "satisfaction with how things are going in the United States" has fallen to 9%, the lowest level Gallup has ever recorded?

Didn't think so.

But the graph accompanying the linked NYTimes article is quite interesting. Notice that the satisfaction level fell to just over 10% at the end of the Carter presidency. It reached 50% only upon Reagan's re-election in 1984, then jumped to 70% by mid-1986. The '87 stock market crash coincided with a falloff. Satisfaction was under 50% when Bush I was elected, and it plummeted to the teens again after Clinton was elected. The 50% mark would not be reached again until 1997. Eyeballing the graph, it looks like on average only 35% to 40% of Americans have felt satisfied during the last three decades. That must mean something.

Satisfaction was over 50% as recently as 2004, as it was in 2000 when Bush II was first elected, but as been in pretty steady decline the last four years.