There are times when the public’s voice is truly distinct. The collective drop in public confidence in government at the end of the Watergate saga was one of those times. The mid-1980s produced another such moment when levels of optimism about the country soared. We saw a similar collective optimism in the early part of this century. Americans across the board felt unusually positive about the economy, and their good feelings spilled over to many areas that had little to do with economic performance. After Sept. 11, the country felt the tragedy as one.
Another distinctive period came in the fall of 2008, when many Americans feared that the country’s economic system would collapse. The poll results from the time were dire, and it is only in looking back on them that we can appreciate how unusual those responses were. The Reuters/University of Michigan October 2008 preliminary report on consumer sentiment registered “its largest monthly decline in the [50-plus-year] history of the surveys.” The Pew Research Center reported that same month that 70 percent of Americans were following economic developments very closely, making the crisis “one of the top ten most closely followed news stories in two decades.” In a Gallup/USA Today question, over half of those surveyed (55 percent) said they were worse off financially than they had been a year before, a rating that Gallup reported was “tied for the most negative reading in Gallup’s 32-year history of asking this question.” In another question from late September, 41 percent said the trouble in the United States economy over the past two weeks had made them feel afraid, a sentiment rarely seen in polls.
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