{"id":6693,"date":"2006-02-23T12:45:29","date_gmt":"2006-02-23T17:45:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6693"},"modified":"2006-02-23T12:45:29","modified_gmt":"2006-02-23T17:45:29","slug":"conservatives-are-happier-but-theyre-the-only-ones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/conservatives-are-happier-but-theyre-the-only-ones\/","title":{"rendered":"Conservatives are happier, but they’re the only ones"},"content":{"rendered":"

George Will tried to explain today<\/a> the big difference between the left and right these days: liberals are less happy.<\/p>\n

A survey by the Pew Research Center shows that conservatives are happier than liberals — in all income groups. While 34 percent of all Americans call themselves “very happy,” only 28 percent of liberal Democrats (and 31 percent of moderate or conservative Democrats) do, compared with 47 percent of conservative Republicans. This finding is niftily self-reinforcing: It depresses liberals.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Will’s point is that those on the right seem to have “sunnier dispositions,” while liberals are tied to a world view that is “complicated and exacting, not to say grim and scolding.” There’s more psycho-babble than usual for a Will column that seeks to explain the whole thing, though I have to admit, I got lost about half-way through. It must have something to do with my disposition.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, I think Will seems to be choosing his data rather selectively. I don’t doubt that the Pew Research Center found that the right is happier — when you control every branch of government, it tends to make one side pretty satisfied — but Will may want to take a moment to recognize the fact that everyone else is far from thrilled.<\/p>\n

Consider, for example, whether Americans think the country is on the right track. For several months, most polls show that the public, by an almost two-to-one margin<\/a>, are “dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this time.”<\/p>\n

When it comes to public confidence in the government, it’s even worse<\/a>.
\n<\/p>\n

Ask Irene Tuzinski, a retiree living in a small, northeast Pennsylvania town, about the legacy of Hurricane Katrina, and she answers with an intense blend of bewilderment and outrage.<\/p>\n

She questions the government’s handling of the recovery — “What happened to all the money we’re spending on Katrina?” she asks — and she doubts the government could ably handle another major disaster. And a new Associated Press-Ipsos Public Affairs poll suggests she is far from alone.<\/p>\n

The poll finds public confidence in government disaster readiness is lower today, six months after Katrina struck, than it was in early September 2005, when images of rooftop-stranded storm victims were fresh in the nation’s mind.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The public is less confident in the government’s disaster readiness now that it was in Katrina’s immediate aftermath? I wouldn’t have guessed that.<\/p>\n

But George Will is encouraged by the fact that conservatives are still happy. Too bad they’re the only ones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

George Will tried to explain today the big difference between the left and right these days: liberals are less happy. A survey by the Pew Research Center shows that conservatives are happier than liberals — in all income groups. While 34 percent of all Americans call themselves “very happy,” only 28 percent of liberal Democrats […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6693\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}