The American Dream
Oct 29, 2010

The American people are mad. No, check that, they are steaming mad. In the weeks leading up to the election, poll after poll after poll has shown that the American people are angrier at government than at any other point in modern U.S. history. American voters have been angry before, but this time it is different. Instead of being mad at just one political party, the American people are now clearly disgusted with both political parties. Neither major party has a positive approval rating. People are sick and tired of the economy being in the tank, they are sick and tired of not being able to get good jobs and they are sick and tired of the nonsense that has been going on in Washington. Both political parties are busy pointing fingers at each other, but what all the major polls in the weeks leading up to the election clearly show is that the American people are placing the blame on both the Republicans and the Democrats. In fact, as you will see below, a clear majority of the American people now wish that they could throw every member of Congress out of office and a clear majority of the American people now wish that they had a third political party to vote for. We have arrived at a point where both political parties have lost the faith of the American people, and where we go from here is anyone’s guess.

Not that the American people have a clear idea of what they actually want. The truth is that the citizens of the United States are deeply, deeply divided on a whole host of issues. But the one thing that American voters can agree on is that they are hopping mad.

The following are 12 recent polls that prove that the American people are really, really pissed off as election day approaches….

#1 According to a recent USA Today/Gallup poll, only about one in four Americans is satisfied with the way that the country is being governed.

#2 The latest ABC News/Yahoo poll found that faith in the U.S. system of government is at a 36 year low.

#3 The newest New York Times/CBS News survey discovered that about 60 percent of American voters believe that their own members of Congress do not deserve to be re-elected.

#4 According to Gallup, Barack Obama had an average approval rating of just 44.7% during the seventh quarter of his presidency, which was a new low. Obama’s average approval rating has fallen substantially every single quarter since he took office.

#5 A Bloomberg National Poll conducted a couple of weeks ago found that more than 40 percent of likely voters who once considered themselves to be Obama supporters are now either less supportive of Obama or do not support him at all at this point.

#6 An absolutely stunning Gallup poll released last month revealed that a whopping 58 percent of the American people believe that a third political party is needed because the Republicans and the Democrats are doing such a bad job of representing the American people.

#7 A new study by The Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University discovered that more than 40 percent of the American people would give the government either a D or an F.

#8 CNBC recently conducted a survey which found that 92 percent of Americans rate the U.S. economy as either “fair” or “poor”.

#9 A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey revealed that 69 percent of Americans believe that free trade agreements have cost the United States jobs. Only 18 percent of the survey respondents said that they believed that free trade agreements have created more American jobs than they have lost.

#10 A Politico/George Washington University Battleground Poll released late last month found that 63 percent of the American people believe that the nation is on the wrong track.

#11 A recent Gallup poll discovered that 46% of Americans believe that the U.S. federal government “poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens.”

#12 A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey that was just completed found that 65% of likely U.S. voters say that if they had the option, they would vote out every member of Congress and start all over.

So will all of this anger result in major change happening in Washington D.C. after the election?

No.

There are 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. At the very most, about 100 of those seats are actually “in play” – meaning that they have a chance to change hands.

So that means that we are going to see at least 335 of the exact same faces when the U.S. House of Representatives begins a new session.

The cold, hard reality is that our current system greatly, greatly, greatly favors incumbents.

Over the past five elections, incumbents have been re-elected to the U.S. House of Representatives at an average rate of 96 percent.

Wouldn’t you like to have a 96 percent chance of winning?

Sure, in 2010 things will be a little different, but we will still likely see incumbents winning at least 80 percent of their matchups.

So much for “change”, eh?